book data
14005 ratings, 4.00 average rating, 1693 reviews
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published
1999
(first published 1997)
by Random House Value Publishing
binding
Hardcover
literary awards
Booker Prize Winner 1997
isbn
0609000195
(isbn13: 9780609000199)
description
In her first novel, award-winning Indian screenwriter Arundhati Roy conjures a whoosh of wordplay that rises from the pages like a brilliant jazz impr...more
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| The Next Best Boo...: Books about India | 42 | 113 | 10/25/2008 10:36AM | |
| Spoilers are a click away, but please help! | 5 | 71 | 10/16/2008 04:39PM |
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avg 4.00
Read in April, 2008
recommended to Adrianne by:
Janrecommends it for: adjective-lovers, women who sometimes fantasize about Going A Little Nuts
Lush, gorgeous prose: reading The God of Small Things is like having your arms and legs tied to a slowly moving, possibly dying horse, and being dragged face-down through the jungle. I mean, like that, only nice. You can't stop seeing and smelling everything, and it's all so foreign and rich. Potentially ripe with e coli.
The similes and metaphors Roy employs are simultaneously tactile and surreal, like an overly vivid dream, and her storytelling style is somewhere between Joseph Conr...more
The similes and metaphors Roy employs are simultaneously tactile and surreal, like an overly vivid dream, and her storytelling style is somewhere between Joseph Conr...more
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(12 people liked it)
8 comments
Read in February, 2008
"Nothing mattered much. Nothing much mattered. And the less it mattered, the less it mattered. It was never important enough. Because Worse Things had happened. In the country that she came from, poised forever between the terror of war and the horror of peace, Worse Things kept happening."
"Perhaps it's true that things can happen in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcomes of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged r...more
"Perhaps it's true that things can happen in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcomes of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged r...more
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Read in November, 2007
recommends it for:
Everyone who can handle it
Okay, it won the Booker prize and everyone has said it before - but god damn is this one melancholy piece of work, and that's actually why I like it.
It's melancholy, not depressing, and it answers more questions about the characters than it first seemed to, although, I have to say, the characters on the whole are quite two-dimensional. Then again, so are a lot of real people: this is an indictment of human life if ever I saw it.
The language is brilliant, the running together of words to ...more
It's melancholy, not depressing, and it answers more questions about the characters than it first seemed to, although, I have to say, the characters on the whole are quite two-dimensional. Then again, so are a lot of real people: this is an indictment of human life if ever I saw it.
The language is brilliant, the running together of words to ...more
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Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
those who thrive on tragedy
I picked this book up at a book fair with my friend. I had heard wonderful things about it, but the lesson I have learned is to do your research if the book you choose to read is without a synopsis on the back.
I'm not giving this book a one-star rating because of the quality of Roy's writing - on the contrary, her work is incredibly moving and beautifully poetic - but my rating is the result of disappointed expectations. As an optimist, I had picked up this book hoping that it would be dens...more
I'm not giving this book a one-star rating because of the quality of Roy's writing - on the contrary, her work is incredibly moving and beautifully poetic - but my rating is the result of disappointed expectations. As an optimist, I had picked up this book hoping that it would be dens...more
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1 comment
I first read this book several years ago, but I've since revisited it many times. I think I keep coming back to it because it solicits such strong emotion from the reader. This is due both to the socially relevant and duly complicated story, and the intuitively realized characters. Narrated in retrospect, the novel spins the tale of the the manner in which Estha and Rahel, child twins living on the very edge of a still-socially respectable and economically-stable family in Ayemenem (in the Ke...more
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Read in January, 2004
It's interesting that Roy said in an interview that she'd never read Rushdie when compared to him. In retrospect that makes sense. I'd been struggling with "The Moors Last Sigh" when a friend from India gave me this book. I didn't pick it up for a few months and then fell into it, doing little else for days while I read it. At first I found that hard to believe, because she plays with language in ways that I thought Rushdie did, but later I could see that the way he works language i...more
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Read in August, 2007
The author talks about the God of Big Things and the God of Small Things, but it seems to me that the more important of the two is Small Things. The little things that are said in passing, a look, a perception - all of these things are usually the trigger for the Big Things... the culmination of the events leading up to it. That is what this book is all about.
As with most books that I love, I finished it with a feeling that I wanted just a bit more. I wanted to know whether Rahel and Esthe ...more
As with most books that I love, I finished it with a feeling that I wanted just a bit more. I wanted to know whether Rahel and Esthe ...more
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Read in June, 2002
recommends it for:
the open-minded
This book blew my mind. The story itself is a little bit ... um ... dingy, I guess. It's very raw and paints a picture most people probably wouldn't sympathize with that much. The writing, however, is absolutely superb. The story is told in a ver poetic prose that shifts dramatically in tone to highlight character and scene differences. It does this so effectively in some places that transitional phrases and punctuation aren't even particularly necessary. For example, when the story flashbacks t...more
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Read in May, 2007
Rhythm and repetition are as powerful in prose as they are in poetry and music. Arudhati Roi's writing in The God of Small Things is hyper-aware of that. Rhythmic structures dominate the novel at all levels, from the riffs and variations of "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...more
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Read in January, 2005
I literally long for Arundhati Roy to write another fiction book, even if it will only be half as beautiful as "The God of Small Things." This is one of those books that has left an indelible mark on me. I never thought one could realistically portray childhood innocence while also depicting haunting tragedy, that a book filled with so many "grown-up" issues could be narrated by a child. This isn't a book that you barrel through to find out what happens next, this is a book...more
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Read in September, 2004
Please excuse me while I go sit in this corner and be dreadfully underwhelmed.
The God of Small Things won the Booker Prize in 1997, and I'd heard very good things about it. And yet I really didn't like it. It's not a bad book - far from it. The characters she has created are really wonderful, and she has succeeded in evoking all the noises and sights and smells of Kerala, even for someone like me who's never been further east than Poland. The narrative structure is disjointed, wanderi...more
The God of Small Things won the Booker Prize in 1997, and I'd heard very good things about it. And yet I really didn't like it. It's not a bad book - far from it. The characters she has created are really wonderful, and she has succeeded in evoking all the noises and sights and smells of Kerala, even for someone like me who's never been further east than Poland. The narrative structure is disjointed, wanderi...more
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Read in January, 2008
Arundhati Roy
The God of Small Things
1997, Flamingo
340 pages
Seldom while reading have I found my heart aching and my eyes watering when only at page 5.
The God of Small Things, set in India, is a story of a family torn apart by the wish to love, but more so, the desire to be loved.
Seen through the eyes of Estha and Rahel (twins, one soul), the story, which starts off with the funeral of the twins’ cousin Sophie Mol, unravels through memories and the personal histories of the ch...more
The God of Small Things
1997, Flamingo
340 pages
Seldom while reading have I found my heart aching and my eyes watering when only at page 5.
The God of Small Things, set in India, is a story of a family torn apart by the wish to love, but more so, the desire to be loved.
Seen through the eyes of Estha and Rahel (twins, one soul), the story, which starts off with the funeral of the twins’ cousin Sophie Mol, unravels through memories and the personal histories of the ch...more
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Read in July, 2007
i know i'm alone on this one. i've never heard a single negative comment about the good of small things. plus, i love arundhati roy. i've read several of her books of essays, heard her speeches, read her occasional newspaper colums, never without utter amazement at the beautiful arrangements she composes with words.
when i finally got around to reading the god of small things i had high hopes. that might be part of the reason why i was so disappointed with this novel. maybe i'd placed it s...more
when i finally got around to reading the god of small things i had high hopes. that might be part of the reason why i was so disappointed with this novel. maybe i'd placed it s...more
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Read in October, 2007
3.5 stars - I rarely read "literary" novels, especially in the past, and this book was one of the first that I got my hands on. It was the Indonesian version, and it received rave reviews from my friends at work, so I decided to take a peek. It was filled with long, convoluted sentences that I thought, no wonder people don't like to read literature!
But then I got curious with the English version, so I looked it up on Amazon to read the first few pages, and what a difference it make...more
But then I got curious with the English version, so I looked it up on Amazon to read the first few pages, and what a difference it make...more
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Read in June, 2007
From the beginning, set at a funeral, the reader knows the book will end in tragedy. The only question is - how? Arundhati Roy does a pretty good job of telling an ever-so-slightly magical story about a family in India struggling with many things (the caste system, the intrusion of Western culture, class conflict, etc.) but mostly with themselves.
That's kind of the funny thing about this novel - underneath its hip, post-colonial mode of storytelling, it's really just a novel about how a fam...more
That's kind of the funny thing about this novel - underneath its hip, post-colonial mode of storytelling, it's really just a novel about how a fam...more
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Goddess of great writing. A brilliant, subversive book.
Arundhati Roy (and Rohinton Mistry in "A Fine Balance") traverses the thorny terrain of India's caste-based society, where destinies are denied and unspeakable suffering unleashed in the name of caste.
Roy's work exposes deep roots of caste discrimination in constituencies which should have no place for it - revealing the convenient, mixed reception of religious and political ideologies. Indeed, what place does the caste sys...more
Arundhati Roy (and Rohinton Mistry in "A Fine Balance") traverses the thorny terrain of India's caste-based society, where destinies are denied and unspeakable suffering unleashed in the name of caste.
Roy's work exposes deep roots of caste discrimination in constituencies which should have no place for it - revealing the convenient, mixed reception of religious and political ideologies. Indeed, what place does the caste sys...more
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I would give this 6 stars if The Man wasn't such a tightfist. Arundati Roy is a Goddess. The language is florid but economical - not one word is misused or wasted. There's one section that describes Chack and Margeret's courtship that I've read probably 10 times, its incredibly lucid and poetic. (Everytime I see someone eating eggs and toast I think of Chacko breaking the "brilliant wobbling yokes." The story unravels by spiraling the timeline, and it works very well.
The first time ...more
The first time ...more
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Read in July, 2008
LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.
"It is curious how sometimes the memory of death lives on for so much longer than the life that it purloined."
"Perhaps it's true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house---the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture---must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Acco...more
"It is curious how sometimes the memory of death lives on for so much longer than the life that it purloined."
"Perhaps it's true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house---the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture---must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Acco...more
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Read in June, 2008
Okay so I just finished The God of Small Things. It is a truly excellent story written in the most beautiful language. The words dance, melt, and imbibe such sad memories lingering in bright colors. The story is tragic, but hopeful in a way. The hopefulness rests in the possibility of new beginnings. It brought up questions about love and how I prescribe it and it what doses. The God of Small Things serves as a mirror reflecting my fears concerning motherhood, the poignancy of my words to my c...more
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5 comments
Read in June, 2007
recommended to Carmen by:
Claire Schagerl & others
This book has sat on my shelf for close to ten years. Well, it has sat on various shelves of various bookcases in seven different homes of four different cites in three different states. Ten years ago (yes, really!) when I was an undergrad and worked at a bookstore I brought home book after book after book (weekly, at least) and slowly over the years I have read through what seemed like an endless supply of unread books. Often distracted by new releases, library loans, and must-purchases-from-in...more
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