The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy · 12 July 2007
If he touched her, he couldn’t talk to her, if he loved her, he couldn’t leave, if he spoke he couldn’t listen, if he fought he couldn’t win.
I was originally drawn to this book for the same reason I’m drawn to many books, an intense curiosity about other people’s religious experiences. It’s not so much that I’m a religious person, I just like knowing what makes people tick, what motivates them, what and why they believe.
The similarity between this title and that of one of my favorite Discworld books, Small Gods, piqued my interest as well. I was half expecting this book to be a similar irreverent treatment of gods that have fallen out of power as their followers diminish in number. I couldn’t have been further off the mark.
The God of Small Things is a complex book that addresses personal loss and weighs it against a country’s politics and cultural traditions. It revolves around one day in the life of a pair of fraternal “egg-twins, ” Estha and Rahel, a day that changed their lives forever, and changed the world very little at all.
He explained to them that history was like an old house at night. With all the lamps lit. And ancestors whispering inside. ‘To understand history,’ Chacko said, ‘we have to go inside and listen to what they’re saying. And look at the books and the pictures on the wall. And smell the smells.’
‘But we can’t go in,’ Chacko explain, ‘because we’ve been locked out. And when we look in through the windows, all we see are shadows. And when we try and listen, all we hear is a whispering. And we cannot understand the whispering, because our minds have been invaded by a war. A war that we have won and lost. The very worst sort of war. A war that captures dreams and re-dreams them. A war that has made us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves.’
Roy writes in the tradition of magic realism. The plot is realistic but it sprinkled with beliefs and visions that one wouldn’t expect to encounter in our modern and eminently practical world. Roy uses mystical symbolism and creative description to create a lush world, a magical village that the twins occupied in their youth and becomes a swollen and sickly version of itself that the twins return to in adulthood.
What I found so impressive about this book is how it managed to juggle several concepts: love, death, rebellion, responsibility, tradition, family, loss, guilt and grief, and not shirk them. By looking at just one event, the death of the twin’s cousin Sophie Mol, the author was able to focus her thoughts through many different lenses, using the perspective of many different characters. Many of the main characters had a theme, a lesson to bring to this event that was reinforced by the other characters. One character would introduce a branch of the story and the others would respond to it and provide their own insight. Through repetition and refrain, the author gradually expanded her ideas.
One image I found particularly powerful was the Roy’s conception of death as leaving a physical presence. She refers to dead leaving a “hole in the world” shaped in the image of the living entity now gone. By the end of the book, the imagery surrounding this phenomenon had grown so strong that I imagined the twins navigating their adult lives through a world populated by gaping black holes left by death. The author makes subtle references to this symbolism throughout the book, such as contrasting Estha’s silence with the outside world that Rahel brings back into his life, forcing him to acknowledge both the light and the darkness in his life as a shadow thrown by the light.
The pivotal day in the twins’ history, the day that Sophie Mol dies, was a day the Gods of Small Things, the gods of personal and private affairs were trumped by the Gods of Big Things. As Roy weaves her story, we come to understand how individual feelings are powerful and yet ultimately powerless, are intensely personal and private, yet also up for public inspection, cataloguing, and judgment. Roy illustrates how the one event that determines the twins’ future is an event rooted in the politics of the Marxist movement and the caste system in India and challenges the reader to believe the actors in the event played out the only options history afforded them.
Every character pays a price, and at the end, the reader is left to judge the value of personal rewards against the price. Roy leaves us with the questions: Was it worth it? And if so, for whom? For me, this was an unsatisfying ending to an otherwise beautiful and engaging book, but I felt it accomplished the Roy’s goals. Ultimately, she presented the reader with a riddle. Who is the God of Small Things, and if he is as powerless as she presents him to be, why do we still worship him?
As an aside, I felt this book was the perfect opportunity to introduce my very newest small thing. Yet another poppet by Lisa Snellings-Clark has found a good home. Little Red has been enjoying her new bookshelf since her arrival earlier this week.
This book was reviewed for the 2007 Book Awards Reading Challenge.
Arundhati Roy,
Book Awards Reading Challenge,
Booker Prize,
Caste,
Indian Fiction,
Magic Realism,
Post-colonialism,
The God of Small Things,
Twins
-
Share this article
How About Some? The Melting Pot - Indian Food Meets California Culture
Add and View Comments
Scott · 12 July 2007, 05:45
What a lovely book. I read this when I was too young to really get it, but some of the images you mentioned still stick out. I think it’s time for a revisit.
Chris · 12 July 2007, 10:40
I’m so glad you reviewed this one. I’ve been debating over reading this one for awhile now and it really sounds like something I’d enjoy. Onto the list it goes!
And I’m glad to see you’ve joined the ranks of poppet and book pictures ;)
Lisa · 12 July 2007, 10:54
What a great photo. I especially appreciated it this morning. We’ve been having some great fun with the LOLpoppets but it good to see ‘poppetvision’ as the ‘closer look’ I originally intended Poppets to help us achieve. Thanks!
Now I’m off to order the book.
Dark Orpheus · 12 July 2007, 19:34
Oh, I read it a ong time ago – and I loved it. There is a meditative quality in the writing, a kind of simplicity in her style that’s clear and beautiful.
I heard Roy’s finally going to return to fiction writing.
Kim · 12 July 2007, 20:21
Scott – I don’t think I would have appreciated this the same way when I was younger. I’m glad I read it now, when I could relate to some of the more complex themes.
Chris & Lisa – Little Red is a great muse, I’m having a ton of fun with her.
Dark Orpheus – This was the only thing I’ve read by Roy. Have you read any of her essays? They have interesting titles, but seem like they may be more obvious in style.
Nymeth · 13 July 2007, 15:13
Wonderful review, Kim! And I ordered this one from Amazon just yesterday. I’ll be reading it for the challenge too in the next few weeks.
Jackson · 13 July 2007, 21:07
I spy a poppet! Awesome!
Mo · 19 July 2007, 09:39
wow…I’m glad I read this review. I had the impression that this book would be too…preachy for my tastes, but after reading your thoughts, I think I’ll find myself a copy.
(Oh! and luv the poppet!!)
Commenting is closed for this article.