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The God of Small Things

I’m reading Arundhati Roy’s Booker prize winning book, The God of Small Things.

I tried reading this in 1998, but could not get past the first 4 pages then. The only other book that so annoyed me in the opening pages is Mario Puzo’s The Sicilian - mainly because I expected it to be as good as The God Father.

This time around, I’m doing better. I’ve read through 60% of the book.

I think I figured out what annoyed me in 1998 (even now it annoys me) is the liberal use of capitalized words.

Also, there seems to be a distinct attempt at the part of the author to display her - quite vast, I must admit - vocabulary. The language is a far cry from simpler and beautiful style like that of Ernest Hemingway’s.

The style of narration strikes to me as very similar to that of Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude - its translated version, rather.

Update - 2 hours later: Finished reading the book. All in all, it is not as bad as I expected it to be from the first 4 pages. In fact towards the end, it is almost as captivating as a wandering mind in delirium - I mean this in a good way.

I think it didn’t tickle my senses as much as One Hundred Years of Solitude, because the voluminous description is about Kerala, my native land. Since I’ve experienced it first hand, there was not much fun in trying to picturize the land, based on reading this book.

For people who have never been to Kerala, I strongly suggest that you don’t make up your perception of the place from this book. Read National Geographic Traveller instead.

All in all, it is an interesting book, though not a spectacular one. If it is raining outside and you want to be alone, this one is for you.