IndiaStar--A Literary-Art Magazine
--Book Review--
The God of Small Things
by Arundhati Roy
(New York: Random House,1997)
321 pages $21.95
Reviewed by Manorama Mathai
[Editor's intro: Manorama Mathai is
the author of Mulligatawny Soup
and An Unsuitable Woman
and many short stories.]
As a Syrian Christian and a writer, I was eager to read The God of
Small Things by Arundhati Roy. I must admit that I was also influenced
by all the hype surrounding the publication, the six figure advance, the
fervid auction and the agent who got on a plane from London and arrived
at the author's door.
This was heady stuff, heightened further by the fact that I know the
author's family and so I could not wait to get my hands on the book. Unavailable
in Bangkok, it was sent from India where the first edition was, I am told,
sold out at the launch.
Set in a small town in Kerala, The God of Small Things is about
a family, seen from the perspective of seven-year-old Rahel. She and her
twin brother, Estha, live with their mother, Ammu, who was married to a
Bengali, the children's Baba, but from whom she is divorced. Ammu and, therefore,
the twins seem to live on sufferance in the Ayemenem house with their grandmother,
uncle, and grand-aunt Baby. The family owns a pickle factory that comes
into conflict with the Communists.
The family is awaiting the arrival of Sophie Mol, the twins' half-English
cousin and the narrative moves backwards and forwards to the arrival and
the aftermath of the death by drowning of Sophie Mol and an ill fated love
affair between Ammu and the untouchable Velutha. Rahel returns to Aymanam
as an adult to a decimated household, a dysfunctional twin and a decaying
house.
That, as Rahel would say, is the purely practical way of looking at it.
There is much more.
The book is certainly well written and some comparison has been made
with Rushdie. However, unlike Rushdie's work, this is easy reading and very
accessible. There are some nice turns of phrase and very interesting images.
A character dies aged 31 at "a viable, die-able age."
Like most first novels, it is heavily autobiographical and the child
character Rahel is so clearly Roy herself that she is a completely plausible
character with whom the reader can empathise. In fact, the book's strength
lies in its portrayal of the family, its weakness is the story.
So what, I asked myself, are my reservations about this book? I believe
that despite the fine writing, the evocative descriptions, there is something
formulaic about it. The inter-caste affair and the death of a child that
lies at the heart of the book are very predictable and the love affair is
not plausible, it does not spring from either the characterisation or the
needs of the story. There is a sense of manipulation by the author and I
thought the incest scene at the end was unnecessary but probably, it was
one of the things that people look for nowadays & which makes for a
successful book. The masturbation of the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man by Estha
is one of these so-called necessary components of a successful book.
In this connection it must be said that Roy handles the sex scene between
Ammu and Velutha with artistry. Nevertheless, Ammu's affair with the untouchable
is wholly implausible, the more so because Roy does not bother to develop
the relationship, it is suddenly sprung on us and we cannot imagine the
motivation. This could also beone of the drawbacks of using a seven-year-old
as one's narrator.
The God of Small Things is often very amusing; there is a lovely
passage where a child recites Lochinvar with a Malayali intonation and pronunciation.
For those who know Kerala, it is all very interesting and for those who
don't, it is certainly exotic and interesting, but despite all the fine
writing, the bottom line is that one is left largely unmoved by the tragedy
that unfolds. But perhaps that doesn't matter and the style's the thing. |