The God of Small Things, Part III: (Chapter XII. Kochu Thomban - XXI. The Cost of Living)

[Jay]

Please discuss the third part of The God of Small Things in this folder, putting spoiler alerts in, when necessary.

[Irene]

AMAZING!!!! I did not want this book to end. Roy did a brilliant job of creating atmosphere. I loved her descriptive phrases. Her characters were so vivid tha they walked around the room I read in; just no way to contain them on the page. I appreciated the ambiguity. Everyone was broken in some degree and everyone broke the next person in line. At one point, I thought this would be about the repression of women as we were treated to Mammachi's beatings and Larry's drunken treatment of Ammu. But, it was soon clear that everyone played some part in maintaining this social balance. There is always some small corner in which one's brokenness can misuse power, too often only half consciously.

[Michelle]

I feel like I'm the only one who found the disjointed style a bit hard to follow! I liked the writing and appreciated the themes, but found myself wishing it would stop jumping around so much!

On the other hand, I thought it was interesting that Sophie Mol played such a big part in the book, and was mentioned so often, but we never really learn much about her...just as the author describes her in terms of the twins -- the living Sophie Mol is temporary; the dead Sophie Mol is an enduring presence.

[Irene]

It took me a little bit to keep the characters all straight in my head, to connect the folks in the present with their incarnation in the past, but once I got far enough into the story, it was not a problem. I enjoyed the childhood sections more than the adult sections because I felt as if I knew the children better. The adult Rahel and Estha remained more mysterious, more unknowable. But, I think that was intentional. They had become ghosts of themselves; as the narrator said, their lives ended that day. The children prior to Sophie's death were alive in a way that the adult twins were not. I think that Kachuma Maria may have been one of the few who were not destroyed by the events because she was peripheral to them. It felt as if Velutha had the more merciful fate.

[Kamil]

Interestingly that Sophie Mol's death was described so simple, almost too simple, she simply drown. It was done after few sentences. And we never found out how it was from her perspective only form the twins one. Like Roy was underlining that it was much more impacting on the family than the dead one herself.
Due to the death of Sophie and the scandal of Ammu's Estha and Rahel lost her mother and father figure, if Chacko can be seen as one.
Also it seems that after those two events, Big Things invaded Small Things world, destroyed it. If Velutha is being named God of Small Things, him being beaten up to death by the police is a great symbol of that invasion.

[Irene]

Sophie's death was the first domino. Had Sophie simply drowned, I don't think there would have been a story. This was a time and place where people died from accidents all the time. But, Sophie's death was connected with the outing of Ammu an Velutha's forbidden romance. Estha had to make a horrible choice between saving his mother with a lie and saving Velutha with the truth. Chacko lost his wife and daughter a second time, a rage and grief that no one could endure without striking out. It was a terrible messy situation and the powerless twins were too young to comprehend it or to protect themselves in the midst of it. Baby Kachumma, in my opinion, is the most deliberately willful perpetrator of the terrible chain of events. Maybe she is just as much a victim of social pressures, of the self-preserving fears of a matron aunt with no money or social standing in the home, but she came off as so jealous, so mean-spirited that I had little sympathy for her.

[Irene]

I read, in the notes at the end of my volume, that charges of indecency were brought against Roy for the final sceen with the twins. Does anyone have any ideas why she wrote that sceen in?

[Michelle]

Gosh, somehow that scene felt really right to me. All through the book they talked about how the twins considered themselves a single unit, a "we." It was like they were merging back into that, in an adult way.

Really interested to hear everyone's thoughts on this

[Kamil]

Irene wrote: "Sophie's death was the first domino. Had Sophie simply drowned, I don't think there would have been a story. This was a time and place where people died from accidents all the time. But, Sophie'..."
By saying that Sophie simply drown, I meant that the scene was so short, almost without drama. The Twins suddenly noticed that she is not with them anymore and that was it, not drowning description, no fighting with the current, gasping for air, nothing like that.
Like Roy was saying that Sophie's death belonged more to the living ones than to herself.

[Kamil]

Irene wrote: "I read, in the notes at the end of my volume, that charges of indecency were brought against Roy for the final sceen with the twins. Does anyone have any ideas why she wrote that sceen in?"

I understood it as a conversation between those two, Estha went silent due to trauma from the past, and since he came back the Twins were not able to communicate and I think this was the only way they could talk and grief. Estha was looking at his sister and was compering her to his mother, so I saw it as a mourning scene too.
I hope that it's not too cheesy.

[Irene]

Since we never see anything from Sophie's pov and no one witnessed the drowning, I did not expect to get any description of the death struggle.

[Kamil]

Irene, actually we did. In 13 chapter if I'm not mistaken when Sophie Mol looking at picture of her parents and especially when she wakes up, gets out of bed and opens her suitcase, to find presents for Estha and Rahel.
Then she goes out with a the presents – to "negotiate a friendship" with Estha and Rahel.
The same way I was expecting the scene of drowning to be shown.

[Irene]

Ah, thanks, I forgot about that sceen.

[Ashley]

I agree with Michelle in regards to how disjointed this book felt to me. I think I would have enjoyed the book more if it was written in a less jumpy style.

I was also surprised at how quick the scene of Sophie Mol's death was. It almost felt insignificant compared to the other events that unfolded.

[Kamil]

Ashley wrote: "I agree with Michelle in regards to how disjointed this book felt to me. I think I would have enjoyed the book more if it was written in a less jumpy style.

I was also surprised at how quick the ..."
Exactly what I thought in regards with Sophie's death.
I wonder what was the reason of that.

[Rick]

Michelle wrote: "I feel like I'm the only one who found the disjointed style a bit hard to follow! I liked the writing and appreciated the themes, but found myself wishing it would stop jumping around so much!

On..."

Who was it who said that the dead are always with us? Was it Amy Tan? If not, she probably should have said it.

[Rick]

Michelle wrote: "Gosh, somehow that scene felt really right to me. All through the book they talked about how the twins considered themselves a single unit, a "we." It was like they were merging back into that, i..."

I was picking up Hindu mythological references in this all the way through--not as overt as Rushdie does in Midnight's Children, but still there. In this case, however, I got Egyptian mythology: Isis and Osiris? Your observation that they are simply reconnecting as "we" is a good one; they are getting back to their pre-natal zygotic origins, to some degree? That makes for some strange reconsideration of their whole story, doesn't it?

[Rick]

Kamil wrote: "Ashley wrote: "I agree with Michelle in regards to how disjointed this book felt to me. I think I would have enjoyed the book more if it was written in a less jumpy style.

I was also surprised at..."
Although Sophie's death is obviously a pivotal moment in the family's history, the event itself is accidental, really only an incident that could so easily have been avoided, and is in fact overlooked by Estha and Rahel even as it's happening. Roy is making the point that significance is very relative (and that pun was not intended).

[Angus]

Our real life book club discussed this last March. Most of us loved it, except for a few of us (yes, me included) who found the literary gymnastics jarring and sometimes pretentious. It is the book I had the most difficulty in giving a star rating. In an attempt to get over this, I summoned W.H. Auden:

"As readers, we remain in the nursery stage so long as we cannot distinguish between taste and judgment, so long, that is, as the only possible verdicts we can pass on a book are two: this I like; this I don't like.
For an adult reader, the possible verdicts are five:
[a] I can see this is good and I like it;
[b] I can see this is good but I don't like it;
[c] I can see this is good and, though at present I don't like it, I believe that with perseverance I shall come to like it;
[d] I can see that this is trash but I like it;
[e] I can see that this is trash and I don't like it."

So how do we assign star ratings to these verdicts? [a] and [e] both look good with 5 and 1, respectively. But my verdict is neither of the two. So what should we do with [b], [c], and [d]? Are these verdicts quantifiable?

Going back to the book, it seems that I have to choose between taste and judgment, but I think they should not outweigh one another.

I finally settled for a 3-star, the average of my love-hate thing for it.

[Janine]

I didn't get to read this book when the group selected it as the monthly read, but now having read everyone's thoughts, I'm really keen to pick it up at some point.

Thanks for adding your thoughts, Angus. It's still good to hear views when the group has moved onto new reads. And it encourages some of us, like me!, to revisit the book.

[Angus]

Hi Janine. I was looking at the past discussions folder and I see that I have read most of them. I will continue to visit the others and post comments. I can even probably pick up the ones that I haven't read yet.