The God of Small Things in Around the Year in 52 Books

Dec 26, 2024 Blaine rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2024, e-book, pc-100-essential-read

It didn’t matter that the story had begun, because kathakali discovered long ago that the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as th

It didn’t matter that the story had begun, because kathakali discovered long ago that the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again.

That is their mystery and their magic.

Seven years ago, I bought the Pop Chart 100 Essential Novels Scratch-off Chart. At the time, I had read 11 of the 100 books. Since then, I’ve read 53 more (and counting). For the most part, hanging the chart in my library has served to inspire me to read books I’ve long heard of but had never found the motivation to read. And while a few have been disappointing (and a couple downright awful), some have become new favorite books of mine: Slaughterhouse-Five, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Infinite Jest, Don Quixote, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The God of Small Things is, thankfully, in that latter group.

The God of Small Things is not an easy or a happy read. The story is constantly shifting between past and present. Until the final pages, the story dances around the tragedy at its center, a sequence of events that left two people dead and a family irrevocably changed. And the subject—the caste system in 1960s India, and specifically the Love Laws in place at the time—feels senseless and causes much suffering. But the writing is wonderful, with great characterization of at least a dozen characters. The story builds with exquisite precision based upon believable choices by these characters. It’s the kind of story you don’t want to see but also can’t look away from. A must read. Highly recommended. ...more

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