The God of Small Things in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Jun 30, 2008 lori light rated it it was amazing

Shelves: myfavorites

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. Accounted for. Little events, ordina ...more

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May 12, 2009 Chinoiseries rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, man-booker-prize, india, literary-fiction, library, 1001-books

I read this book much slower than usual, because around the time I picked it up, I was about to fall into a reading slump. It was actually a blessing in disguise; had I raced through it, I do not think I would have truly appreciated its pervading melancholy (of wrong paths taken) or oppressiveness (of family, of the surrounding wilderness), nor its colorful characters.
From the very beginning, the reader is informed that Sophie Mol, the little girl with the hat and bell bottom pants, who was love I read this book much slower than usual, because around the time I picked it up, I was about to fall into a reading slump. It was actually a blessing in disguise; had I raced through it, I do not think I would have truly appreciated its pervading melancholy (of wrong paths taken) or oppressiveness (of family, of the surrounding wilderness), nor its colorful characters.
From the very beginning, the reader is informed that Sophie Mol, the little girl with the hat and bell bottom pants, who was loved more than anything (as opposed to Rahel, who by her own transgressions, is Loved a Little Less) is dead. Her death is weighed down by a terrible secret, but only by getting to know the books' characters you will find out what really happened. The twins are a mischievous pair, fathered by a drunkard that their mother, Ammu, was wise to leave. Courtesy of their grandparents, they have been admitted back to the ancestral home in Ayemenem, a house they share with uncle Chacko and their small and spiteful Christian great-aunt Baby Kochamma.
The title of The God of Small Things refers to Ammu's afternoon dream, a dream in which a man leaves a lingering impression on her, and which convinces her to start a forbidden love affair. Part of the family's downfall is set in motion by this decision, and part of it has to do with Sophie Mol's death. In my opinion, it is a novel about a family painfully caught between tradition and modernity. Chacko is a Communist (but also a factory owner and a romanticist) and he is divorced from Margaret, the white British mother to his daughter Sophie Mol. Ammu left her husband to return to her parental home, instead of suffering as a good wife should. There's Baby Kochamma, the bitter Christian nun who turned to the faith in a twisted attempt to be close to her one true love, Father Mulligan. Velutha, the Untouchable, has become indispensable at the family-owned Paradise Pickles & Preserves factory, but when everything is at stake, it must be him who takes the fall.
Roy's prose compelled me continue reading, even when I knew the truth would not be pretty. Finally, the imperfections in all are painfully scrutinized by the author, but it is something that makes them truly emerge from the pages they are written on. It makes them believable and real. It invokes our sympathy whether they are likable or not; my heart ached for every single one of them. ...more

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