Back when I was working on my Master’s in English Literature, and this was back in the late 90s, I must have had, for some reason, a need to buy the novel The God of Small Things by Indian author Arundhati Roy for a class. I just have no idea which one because I never read it. Or maybe it was for an undergraduate class. I don’t know. All I know is I had a copy and never read it. And I was not the sort of person who skipped required reading. Heck, I read books that were listed as “optional” when I had the time. So, why did I have a copy of this book and never read it?
Moot point. I lost that copy at some point and replaced it recently since, well, I figured I probably should read it. That done, here’s a quick review.
The story takes place over two time lines and follows a pair of fraternal twins, brother Estha and sister Rahel. Most of the book follows a series of events in their childhood, namely the death of their half-English cousin Sophie Mol, that led to the two’s separatation when Estha was sent off to be raised by his alcoholic father, Rahel stayed with their mother’s family, and their mother Ammu was sent away from both of them. The twins were seemingly supernaturally close, so long term separation was not good for either of them. The other time line is something akin to the present when the twins finally reunite in their grandmother’s large house, now only home to a single great-aunt named Baby Kochamma. Estha is largely silent and comes home every day from long walks, says nothing, but immediately handwashes his clothes and gives himself a good cleaning with some crumbling soap. Rahel, the closest the book comes to having a main protagonist, returned to India from America where after a divorce she mostly drifted around different minimum wage jobs with little or no real drive or purpose.
Now, it should be worth noting the death of Sophie Mol is not a surprise. The novel lets the reader know from the very first chapter it’s coming, and her actual death, though tragic especially given her age, is handled in a rather subtle manner very quickly when it finally happens. Instead, the book is more about the fall-out of that event where other scandals combined with a need for all involved to save face take things in a direction much, much darker than it needed to go. Even though the family is actually Christian, and the other, louder factional voice is a Communist one, there’s still a strong undercurrent of prejudice against the Untouchables. I don’t necessarily know a lot about Indian culture–and from what I’ve since learned, knowledge of India’s recent historic, political, and social upheavals actually increases a reader’s potential enjoyment of the story–but I know enough about the caste system and the Untouchables to get that much.
This is a book full of vivid colors, forbidden sexual desires, and words that seemed designed to unintentionally hurt people, especially children. It’s a work full of contradictions, such as the fact the twins’ uncle Chacko, Sophie Mol’s father, is someone who believes himself to be a Marxist while owning a pickle factory which he more or less took from his mother anyway. Baby Kochamma never married, in part because in her youth she was so smitten with an Irish Catholic priest that she converted to Catholicism and became a nun to be closer to him (the plan didn’t work). Chacko’s only true love is his English ex-wife, and his mother is somewhat in love with her son after he finally stopped his father from beating her when he was finally big enough to do so. And that’s not even the only incestual vibe the book gives off given the relationship between the twins, though in their case, it comes down more to the idea they’re more or less two halves of the same person, and separating them was the worst thing anyone could do.
The final result is a book that says no matter how much India may be trying to “modernize” itself into something closer to what the English brought in–Anglophilia and whether or not it should exist is a another major theme of the work–it is still very much a traditional country with traditional ways of doing things. Chacko, for example, may very much think of himself as a modern man with a modern way of doing things, but that doesn’t mean the generally happy-go-lucky fellow doesn’t feel he has control over his mother’s home and property after his father dies. Baby Kochamma especially seems to represent propriety and traditional ways of doing things. But in the end, the decisions made after the facts of Sophie Mol’s fate come out come down to people trying to protect themselves at the expense of someone else, and that’s probably a universal concept no matter what culture a person hails from. I may not remember what class exactly I initially bought this book for or even what happened to my original copy, nor know much about modern India’s recent history, but this was well worth a read regardless.
Grade: A-
0 Comments