The God of Small Things | Arundhati Roy

The God of Small Things | Arundhati Roy | Exhilarating, But Not For All

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The God of Small T...

	The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy Harper Perennial, 1998 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 869 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Katie

It's like reading beautifully dense poetry. It's a challenge at first that pays off in linguistics and intensity. It's incredible! Definitely recommend.

Exhilarating, But Not For All

As many reviewers have lamented, this is not a linear story, and it is indeed an effort and a challenge to begin and stick with, but for those who relish the rich, complex literary styles of writers like Faulkner and Morrison (think "Beloved"), The God of Small Things is an exhilarating reading experience. You will either be bothered by or adore Roy's poetic, lyrical, and often abstract, writing style. I adored it. It reminded me of the work I love by poets ee cummings and Ezra Pound. It is about feelings less than it is about facts.

I decided early on in the novel that I would let it carry me in along and that I would not get too bogged down by trying to always know what, exactly, was going on. Roy throws many threads out for the first half and then gracefully pulls them all together, skillfully weaving them into each other, until the story's moving and heartrending ending. This is a story about broken people in a broken society, about love and truth, about this insane thing we all know as our family, of happiness, sadness and loss and of the awesome, mind-boggling enormity of Life's small moments, small events, small things.

When I finished the last page, I turned back to the first and began it again. I will look forward to more works by Ms. Roy.

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Another first book wonder!

I just finished reading "The Thirteenth Tale" which was the author's first book, and my mother recommended that I read this one. It was also a first book and a Booker Prize winner to boot. They were similar in some ways. Both books were about twins and disfunctional families, and the harm that causes. But this one was set in India in the 1960's, so a much different setting. This one also delved into racial and class dissention, and even touched on political dissention with the bits about the Indian Communist party. This was a dreamlike book that wove in and out from when the twins were six or seven to when they were eleven to when they were grown up. It showed how a catastrophic event can forever change a family, and it showed how difficult it is for children to grow up normally with families that are disfuntional and families full of issues that are never dealt with. Ms. Roy's dramatic sense of prose is quite wonderful. Her characters are full and rounded and descriptions are magical. She is a wonderful writer and uses words like a tapestry to outline the pictures that she wants to create. I recommend that you read this book and "The Thirteenth Tale" by Dianne Setterfield. Each is quite wonderful in its own way.

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I wanted to put this book down, but finished, it was worth it.

I want to start out by saying that I never put a book down. I always finish them. This was one of those books that I thought about putting down, but decided to keep on going. It was defiantly worth finishing because I ended up enjoying it very much.

On reason why I wanted to put this book down was because I found it frustrating at first to read. I am a seasoned reader that reads quite a bit, but I thought that the author jumped around too much between stories, characters, and most importantly past and present. At first this may be confusing but after a lot of pages and you get the sense for the characters and time periods you get use to it. This was confusing at first because it would jump around from paragraph to paragraph, but after looking at the book as a whole the author did this to develop the story.

By time I got to the last 100 or so pages I could not put this story down. This is when everything starts to come together and what makes it all and all a great story. I admit it is frustrating reading the story about the secret with tons of foreshadowing that already happened. It almost makes you feel like you missed something while reading it, but once you get to those final pages everything starts to come together.

I am going to give this book, 4 stars. The reason for this is because I thought it was a great story that really came together the last 100 or so pages, but at times before that it was frustrating to read because of the authors writing style and jumping around so much early on.

All and all I would recommend this book to everyone because it poses many interesting issues and ultimately is a great story. If you feel like putting it down I would tell you to keep on reading because everything will eventually come together and make a great story.

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Gripping story told in a confusing fashion

What takes place in this story is gripping; however, I found it very difficult to read. Many times I almost put it down and then the next chapter would totally capture my attention. I am so glad that I did finish it.

The capitalization, sentence structure, Indian words, backward spelling, etc. just diverted my focus on the book rather than adding to it. For some readers, this might help portray images, feelings, etc. For me it was just confusing. And would someone tell me what Ammu lost when she lost her "locusts stand I"??? This phrase occurs several times and I realize that is what the twins are hearing, but I just couldn't get it. This is just typical of so many of the confusing elements.

I have read several wonderful novels set in India lately (Inheritance of Loss, for example), however, I felt that what some call Roy's extraordinary narration, I found to be just gimicky and distracting.

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