ManBookering discussion
This topic is about
The God of Small Things
Archive
>
November Group Read (2015)- The God of Small Things
date
newest »
newest »
Which Rushdie? His bibliography is quite spotty. my first was The Ground Beneath her Feet and I didn't like it at all.
Robert wrote: "Which Rushdie? His bibliography is quite spotty. my first was The Ground Beneath her Feet and I didn't like it at all."Comments crossed! See my post above - same book and same opinion! Which Rushdie is The God of Small Things like, then?
His Latest; Two Years, Eight Months and Two Days, Shame and Midnight's Children.However My favourite (so far) is The Satanic Verses. If you survive the first twenty pages, which consists of an elaborate scene set up, then you will be handsomely rewarded.
Agreed. Small Things is very Midnight's Children. The Satanic Verses is also my favourite so far.
Finished! I gave it 4 stars: really liked it and very glad it won the vote for the first book to be read here. Things I like most: the language, the non-linear timeline, the impressionistic style of much of the writing. The story, if written by someone else, probably isn't all that special: it's the writing that makes it such a pleasure to read.
Mod
*possibly spoilers*
I don't feel any emotion for the characters, particularly the scene in the movie theater. Like Britta said above, appalling but not any more horrifying than reading a newspaper account. I feel very distant from the characters. And when the heck is this Sophie character actually going to make an appearance because I've been hearing about her for 130 pages!
Anyway, glad others enjoyed/are enjoying it. Hopefully it will improve for me.
Mod
I feel quite frustrated, why do the others enjoy this book so much? What am I missing??
Britta wrote: "Maxwell wrote: "I'm nearing the halfway mark and unfortunately feeling very unmotivated to continue. I do think the writing is playful and enjoyable to read on its own but the story is not connecti..."Britta, I don't think it is a case of missing anything, more that we all like different things. Maxwell is frustrated waiting for a character to appear whereas I enjoyed the tension of that wait. I like the non-linear time line, but that isn't to everyone's taste. But the main thing I enjoyed was the language because it was refreshingly different.
Re comparisons with Midnight's Children - I feel like MC is a more mischievous and but also more polished version of Small Things ... however I wonder whether my enjoyment of Rushdie's work was because I was reading it more than 15 years later than Roy's and in that time I have read quite a bit of Indian literature, which meant the background events were no longer a puzzle, and the playfulness of the language - esp with use of "Hinglish" - was a pleasant bonus rather than an added confusion. I think I will have to re-read Small Things and find out!
Breanne wrote: "I'm starting chapter 6 and still really enjoying it. I am not finding it difficult to keep track of characters and I really like that what happened with Sophie is being withheld. The non-linear nar..."Breanne, that is exactly how I felt reading it - thank you for articulating it so well.
I am on Chapter 12 with the theater scene, and wanted to recommend The Palace of Illusions if anyone is interested in the retelling of the Mahabharata. The chapter alludes to the battle scenes but the Palace book is a longer, better explained, version of this Indian myth/story.
Wow I've never heard of that. Will check out. Thanks!
Not heard of The Palace of Illusions before but it looks right up my street - thanks for the recommendation!
I have read other Indian authors. I believe it to be true this method we're seeing in God of Small Things is not so strange to their way of storytelling.I too thought of Rushdie and happen to be reading a Garcia Marquez book at present while reading this current group selection. I see the similarities. Marque repeats phrases often. They seem to take us back to the title and theme.
I'm really enjoying my second read-through of the book. Thanks to Robert for his timeline as well.
Mod
Part of me felt dumb for giving up, especially because I am leading this group. But I hope y'all don't mind your Manbookering leader DNF-ing our very first group read! How silly. I definitely hope this isn't a trend haha. It shouldn't be. I rarely DNF books, but I just don't want to force myself to read something I'm really not enjoying. It puts a damper on my whole reading mood and unmotivates me.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the book and discussion! I am really glad to see so many people participating.
Nothing wrong with that imo :) It just wasn't the right time. I've found out through experience that books should be given a second chance though, especially Booker winners.
Maxwell - best thing to do. After all, we read for pleasure. If it's not pleasure, why force yourself? As others have said, let's see who can't bring themselves to finish the next one!
Just because something is a Booker doesn't necessarily mean it will be your cup of tea ... I have Will Self's "Umbrella" sitting on my shelf and I must remember to give myself permission not to finish it if I am really not enjoying it (Stream of Consciousness and I don't have a great track record of getting along but I am going to give it another go).I remember many moons ago everyone raving about The Wasp Factory (not a Booker ... rightly so!) but I thought it was the biggest load of twaddle I've ever read. Horses for courses!
True re Booker Winners, I've tried to read Kelman's How Late it Was, How Later about three or four times and I still can't finish it. Re Iain Banks - Although I like Wasp Factory, I think it's the sort of book you read when you're 15 and want to be shocked. I find it quite puerile, he has written better books though. Crow Road in particular is quite mature.I think, again, this is my opinion that God of Small things is a book that should be read more than once, even if the first attempt was not a good one. There's the beauty of language - use of puns, alliteration and the feelings evoked - the title chapter alone (does that word exist) gave me gooseflesh, the historical plot, the way Roy preserves childhood innocence in the narration mixed with the corrupt adult one - which ties it loosely with Catcher in the Rye and To Kill A Mockingbird.I'm sure there are other novels which tackle the same subject (right now Lahiri's The Lowlands comes to mind) but I wonder if they do it just a poignantly. Out of the Booker winners, I feel this is one of the significant ones. It's a well crafted novel which shows thought.
Really what I am trying to say is that I wouldn't knock this book. Wait a few years and pick it up again. :)
I've also been thinking about how this compares with To Kill a Mockingbird, another book told in flashback to childhood, which holds off the mystery of what actually happened until the end. And they're both books which challenge "the laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much".
It's absolutely ok for this not to be the right moment for you and Small Things. I first picked it up four or five years ago, having just read Midnight's Children. I read the first 50 pages or so and it wasn't doing anything for me so I dropped it. Now I'm so glad I joined this group - I probably wouldn't've come back to it otherwise, and I'm enjoying it so much. So sure, put it aside for now and read something you dig. But don't write it right off. :)
It's absolutely ok for this not to be the right moment for you and Small Things. I first picked it up four or five years ago, having just read Midnight's Children. I read the first 50 pages or so and it wasn't doing anything for me so I dropped it. Now I'm so glad I joined this group - I probably wouldn't've come back to it otherwise, and I'm enjoying it so much. So sure, put it aside for now and read something you dig. But don't write it right off. :)
Mod
Although I enjoyed the last 50 pages more than the rest of the book, overall I just didn't like it. Sorry guys!
Sometimes one simply has to accept that a certain book (well-liked and praised by many) just isn't for you. Incompatibilité d'humeur....
It's ofcourse always hard to explain why. I can only say that I didn't feel any attachment to the characters and I didn't like the writing style. I think my main issue was that I felt there was too much explained to me about the characters, not only their background but also their actions and feelings. Too much telling, not enough showing. But thats very personal and I dont, in any way, want to sound disrespectful to the people who enjoyed and appreciated the book.
Still, I am glad I tried, and I am happy that so many of you loved (re-)reading the book. The positive comments from other readers also gave me lots to think about and I am looking forward to our December-read.
Maxwell wrote: "After much debate and internal struggle, I've decided to give up on this one. I really just wasn't connecting with the story and every time I sat down to read it I would find excuses not to read, w..."There was a time I thought I had to finish every book I started. It was a matter of vanity, to be sure. Now, if I find a book not to my liking (for whatever reason), I do not finish it. When I was reading through all the Pulitzers for fiction, there were some I found tedious. I had to put Cheever's short stories away and come back to them.
Funny, on my other "List" I use DNF and wondered if anyone would know what I meant!
I've had so very little time to read as I'm studying for an upcoming test constantly! Thus in only just starting the second chapter but I find the prose so enchanting and beautiful. I wish I had more time to read so I could get fully invested in the story, which I think will inevitably happen as I love the sense of mystery. This is a book I think I'm going to really love- but we'll see!
Just finished God of Small Things. If anything this third reading was the best one and I really got the language and intricate plot. It is a coming of age story but a meta one as due to the different plot threads the book takes the growing up premise to a whole new level. Also this time round I discovered the orangelemondrinkman's relevance to the plot - it goes to show that not one thing is out of place in the God of Small Things.
Just finished God of Small Things. If anything this third reading was the best one and I really got the language and intricate plot. It is a coming of age story but a meta one as due to the different plot threads the book takes the growing up premise to a whole new level. Also this time round I discovered the orangelemondrinkman's relevance to the plot - it goes to show that not one thing is out of place in the God of Small Things.
I just finished God of Small Things and I definitely think this is a novel to be best appreciated upon rereading. I almost DNFed this a few times but for me personally it was worth pushing through to the end, but only just. The last quarter made me feel something, whilst the rest of the book didn't really make me feel anything, so I'm not sure how to feel about the novel as a whole. But seeing how much more people are enjoying rereading it than reading it for the first time definitely gives me hope for a possible reread in the future!
Just finished. 5 stars. Absolutely loved it. The playful, punful, pickled language is right up my ally, and the non-linear structure preserves as much as it pickles! Yes it's confusing and potenially off-putting at first (perhaps upon first read in its entirety?), but I loved the feeling of being lost in this story; exploring its highways and byways and nooks and crannies in no obvious order, often finding myself back at a familiar spot; finally ending up somewhere around the middle of the chronology, suspending "tomorrow", denying and defying the tragedies that haven't yet happened but have already happened. It's an ending which sends me right back to the beginning, wanting to reread immediately. Rich and beautiful and brilliant.
I'm quite late in starting this, so I'm going to do a combo read / listen. What I'm loving so far is the language, it's beautiful, evocative and my favorite thing about the book so far. I will say I'm glad I've got the print version as well as the audio, as I've gotten lost a couple times while listening so it's nice to go back and reread. Because of the writing I really am enjoying the audio, it's lovely to 'hear' what's being said. I think because the story jumps about I had a sense things were going to happen, so I wasn't surprised when the OrangeLemon drink man arrived. It was a horrible little scene, I felt dread and disgust, but it felt so matter of fact or maybe it's just that it's so common place IRL that it bleeds into fiction and I'm jaded by it. That said, I'm looking forward to unraveling the rest of the story.
Cataluna6 wrote: "I'm quite late in starting this, so I'm going to do a combo read / listen. What I'm loving so far is the language, it's beautiful, evocative and my favorite thing about the book so far. I will say ..."
I love the idea of this on audio - glad you're enjoying it. I think the matter-of-factness is deliberate. The Orangedrink Lemondrink Man behaves as though it's nothing remarkable ("Now if you'll kindly hold this for me") in order to keep from getting caught out; he even makes it seem as though he is doing Estha a favour by allowing him to have a drink before the interval ("it has to be a secret because drinks are not allowed before the interval"). Estha, who has no reference points for this kind of abuse, no outraged or horrified language for it, experiences it matter-of-factly, "because he had to". Estha's observations flick between what's happening and distracting details like the list of products his grandmother's factory makes, and the experience of drinking his drink. And the drink then becomes a symbol of the experience: "free, fizzed fear".
I'd be interested to hear Robert's thoughts on this episode:
"Also this time round I discovered the orangelemondrinkman's relevance to the plot - it goes to show that not one thing is out of place in the God of Small Things. "
I love the idea of this on audio - glad you're enjoying it. I think the matter-of-factness is deliberate. The Orangedrink Lemondrink Man behaves as though it's nothing remarkable ("Now if you'll kindly hold this for me") in order to keep from getting caught out; he even makes it seem as though he is doing Estha a favour by allowing him to have a drink before the interval ("it has to be a secret because drinks are not allowed before the interval"). Estha, who has no reference points for this kind of abuse, no outraged or horrified language for it, experiences it matter-of-factly, "because he had to". Estha's observations flick between what's happening and distracting details like the list of products his grandmother's factory makes, and the experience of drinking his drink. And the drink then becomes a symbol of the experience: "free, fizzed fear".
I'd be interested to hear Robert's thoughts on this episode:
"Also this time round I discovered the orangelemondrinkman's relevance to the plot - it goes to show that not one thing is out of place in the God of Small Things. "
Yes - What I meant is that Estha has got a continuous fear of the Orangedrink Lemondrink fan. (SPOILER ALERT) Do you remember towards the end of the novel when estha and rahel are running away? Well it is partly because of their mother but there's a sentence which states that Estha is scared of the Orangedrink Lemondrink man paying a visit, so this could mean that Estha's real motivation for leaving the house was due to his abuse earlier on in the novel. It's not clear but that sentence does allude to it.another spoiler
What do you think of Estha and Rahel's relationship as grownups? do you feel that it's a bit tacked on?
Robert, I agree on the orange/lemon man - I think fear of him is one of the things that drives Estha through much of the story and it is clearly a key chapter in the story.I didn't, however, feel that the adult relationship was tacked on. For me, it was an important element of the structure where it was a mixture of "before and after". It worked for me.
I didn't finish this book and really didn't enjoy it :( I feel like I'm one of the only ones but I just couldn't do it. I felt myself slumping. It really was beautifully written though. The prose is stupendous
Kerry wrote: "I didn't finish this book and really didn't enjoy it :( I feel like I'm one of the only ones but I just couldn't do it. I felt myself slumping. It really was beautifully written though. The prose..."
Hi Kerry - here's a really interesting discussion, then! For me, if a book is beautifully written, it almost doesn't matter what it is about: I will read the whole of it. How important is story and how important is the way the story is told? I suspect we will all have slightly different answers.
What stopped you finishing it, if you liked the writing style?
I agree with Neil here - at the mo i'm reading Sarah Hall's the electric Michelangelo and it's predictable oh but the writing style is great so I am soldering on.
Neil wrote: "Robert, I agree on the orange/lemon man - I think fear of him is one of the things that drives Estha through much of the story and it is clearly a key chapter in the story.
I didn't, however, feel..."
SPOILERS ABOUND
Re. The lasting impact of the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man on Estha: I agree. Even when he is being sent away in the penultimate chapter, his words on the train - "Feeling vomity!" - are an exact echo of what he said to his mother in the cinema immediately after the event. (p.326 and p.107 respectively)
Re. Rahel and Estha's adult relationship:
The novel begins with Rahel returning "to see her brother, Estha", and one way of reading the book might be to see this opening and their reunion in the penultimate chapter as the bookends which begin and end the story, with everything in between as background.
"In those early amorphous years when memory had only just begun, when life was full of Beginnings and no Ends, and Everything was For Ever, Esthappen and Rahel thought of themselves together as Me, and separately, individually, as We or Us. As though they were a rare breed of Siamese twins, physically separate, but with joint identities." (p.2)
After that, I don't think there's anything tacked-on about their adult relationship. I agree with Neil about its place structurally, and feel the way their story ends (just before the final "flashback") is a necessary closing of the circle: in that penultimate chapter, the story jumps straight from their separation immediately to their "reunion".
There are lots of things going on with this reunion. Most obviously, it is another riff on the "Love Laws" refrain: "once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much". (p.328)
It is also about blurring the edges again, rebelling against clearly defined categories and identities (this is a recurring theme of Rushdie's writing as well, and is one of the things I am most fascinated by in literature in general): "There is very little that anyone could say to clarify what happened next". This lack of clarification/clarity, and resistance to definition, is like a defiant resolution of the problem the novel began with:
"Their lives have a size and a shape now. Estha has his and Rahel hers.
Edges, Borders, Boundaries, Brinks and Limits have appeared like a team of trolls on their separate horizons. Short creatures with long shadows, patrolling the Blurry End. Gentle half-moons have gathered under their eyes and they are as old as Ammu was when she died. Thirty-one.
Not old.
Not young.
But a viable die-able age." (p.3)
This final act returns the twins to their original state and to their mother, together again as they were in her womb: Rahel possesses "their beautiful mother's mouth", and they are both again described as being "a viable die-able age" immediately before their "what happened next" (p.327). But it is not a happy reunion/return: "what they shared that night was not happiness, but hideous grief" (p.328): it is a kind of death, and an aftershock of the tragic events at the centre of the novel. Their lives have been completely ruined and can have no satisfying resolution: they end in a symbolic attempt to undo everything, to revert to their beginning and start all over again, before the tragedy or "Terror", as though the story is trying to turn itself inside out, in the same way that the novel ends on Ammu's "Tomorrow", before it all falls apart.
I didn't, however, feel..."
SPOILERS ABOUND
Re. The lasting impact of the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man on Estha: I agree. Even when he is being sent away in the penultimate chapter, his words on the train - "Feeling vomity!" - are an exact echo of what he said to his mother in the cinema immediately after the event. (p.326 and p.107 respectively)
Re. Rahel and Estha's adult relationship:
The novel begins with Rahel returning "to see her brother, Estha", and one way of reading the book might be to see this opening and their reunion in the penultimate chapter as the bookends which begin and end the story, with everything in between as background.
"In those early amorphous years when memory had only just begun, when life was full of Beginnings and no Ends, and Everything was For Ever, Esthappen and Rahel thought of themselves together as Me, and separately, individually, as We or Us. As though they were a rare breed of Siamese twins, physically separate, but with joint identities." (p.2)
After that, I don't think there's anything tacked-on about their adult relationship. I agree with Neil about its place structurally, and feel the way their story ends (just before the final "flashback") is a necessary closing of the circle: in that penultimate chapter, the story jumps straight from their separation immediately to their "reunion".
There are lots of things going on with this reunion. Most obviously, it is another riff on the "Love Laws" refrain: "once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much". (p.328)
It is also about blurring the edges again, rebelling against clearly defined categories and identities (this is a recurring theme of Rushdie's writing as well, and is one of the things I am most fascinated by in literature in general): "There is very little that anyone could say to clarify what happened next". This lack of clarification/clarity, and resistance to definition, is like a defiant resolution of the problem the novel began with:
"Their lives have a size and a shape now. Estha has his and Rahel hers.
Edges, Borders, Boundaries, Brinks and Limits have appeared like a team of trolls on their separate horizons. Short creatures with long shadows, patrolling the Blurry End. Gentle half-moons have gathered under their eyes and they are as old as Ammu was when she died. Thirty-one.
Not old.
Not young.
But a viable die-able age." (p.3)
This final act returns the twins to their original state and to their mother, together again as they were in her womb: Rahel possesses "their beautiful mother's mouth", and they are both again described as being "a viable die-able age" immediately before their "what happened next" (p.327). But it is not a happy reunion/return: "what they shared that night was not happiness, but hideous grief" (p.328): it is a kind of death, and an aftershock of the tragic events at the centre of the novel. Their lives have been completely ruined and can have no satisfying resolution: they end in a symbolic attempt to undo everything, to revert to their beginning and start all over again, before the tragedy or "Terror", as though the story is trying to turn itself inside out, in the same way that the novel ends on Ammu's "Tomorrow", before it all falls apart.
I really can't get enough of this book, and I'm sure others who have enjoyed it will recognise this as a favourite passage:
"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."
This is how I have come to feel about The God of Small Things.
"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."
This is how I have come to feel about The God of Small Things.
wow! thanks for this - Ok I just realised that this is the birth life rebirth theme which is common in Asian philosophy and can be seen in Rushdie, both Desai's etc
Dom - great stuff! Thanks.
This is also a very interesting reading of that SPOILER scene, which hadn't occurred to me:
"[I]t would be easier" writes Baneth-Nouailhetas "to dismiss the scene as a metaphorical, slightly excessive representation of fraternal, geminate love" (2002, 144). I believe the metaphor is different, and that the breaching of the incest taboo is meant to embody the final logic of endogamy, of the refusal of exogamy. Endogamy does not only lead to the tragic ending of a drama (what Baneth-Nouailhetas calls "the facility of - the all in all familiar story - a 'star-crossed' love", 144); more practically, this incestuous union becomes an ironical metaphor for an excessive "purity" which leads to a genetic dead-end, and to the end of lineage and life; in other words, to the "Inbreeding" denounced by Chacko, who praises the "indecently healthy" appearance of his daughter and his nephew and niece: "He said it was because they didn't suffer from Inbreeding like most Syrian Christians. And Parsees" (Roy 1997, 61).
Full essay at http://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/breaki...
"[I]t would be easier" writes Baneth-Nouailhetas "to dismiss the scene as a metaphorical, slightly excessive representation of fraternal, geminate love" (2002, 144). I believe the metaphor is different, and that the breaching of the incest taboo is meant to embody the final logic of endogamy, of the refusal of exogamy. Endogamy does not only lead to the tragic ending of a drama (what Baneth-Nouailhetas calls "the facility of - the all in all familiar story - a 'star-crossed' love", 144); more practically, this incestuous union becomes an ironical metaphor for an excessive "purity" which leads to a genetic dead-end, and to the end of lineage and life; in other words, to the "Inbreeding" denounced by Chacko, who praises the "indecently healthy" appearance of his daughter and his nephew and niece: "He said it was because they didn't suffer from Inbreeding like most Syrian Christians. And Parsees" (Roy 1997, 61).
Full essay at http://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/breaki...
and i will say it again. Oh wow
Neil wrote: "Kerry wrote: "I didn't finish this book and really didn't enjoy it :( I feel like I'm one of the only ones but I just couldn't do it. I felt myself slumping. It really was beautifully written tho..."
I think it had absolutely stunning writing, and the pose was elegant and graceful, but I just had trouble connecting with the characters and found that the story didn't engage me. I didn't really care about what happened to them next or about their family, so I think I DNF at about 50%. I found it a little dull in parts, but I think that's because I'm used to my psychological thrillers where I'm on the edge of my seat.
I just had trouble finding the story interesting enough and found it dull in parts, even though it was so stunningly written that I wanted to like it.
Rereading it after remembering loving it when it first came out.; such a strange experience.
How are you enjoying the reread?
On June 1st 2017 Arundhati Roy's second novel will be published. It's called The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.:)
Yes! I've had my side-eye on this for a while. I'll probably reread Small Things in prep. Excited:)
ManBookering
Books mentioned in this topic
The Palace of Illusions (other topics)The God of Small Things (other topics)
I read The Ground Beneath Her Feet. I found it pretentious. I am quite prepared to discover my tastes have changed in the last few years, though (I read it when it was first released) or to be persuaded into trying another (given the list of other books I want to read, it will require some good persuading!).