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The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy In her new book, The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy paints an elaborate portrait of the lives of twins growing up in the complex social environment of castes and Syrian Christianity in post-colonial India. Rahel and Esthappen see the world through the simple, amazingly insightful eyes of childhood and innocence: "When people died at sea, they were wrapped in white sheets and thrown overboard with millstones around their necks...Estha wasn't sure how they decided how many millstones to take with them before they set off on their voyage." They pretend to be refined Indian women, they read words backwards for fun ("Miss Mitten complained...she had seen Satan in their eyes."), and they introduce fragile Sophie Mol to the harsh but beautiful world of India. Most of the adults around them are creatures of society and expectation, incapable of getting beyond the small things to the big things that need to be discussed. The notable exceptions are Ammu, their divorced mother, and Velutha, an Untouchable who works for the family. But these two are pariahs - powerless to change the rigid world in which they live. Rahel and Estha are innocent, but even that does not protect them. "They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved and how. And how much." Roy's language is precise and often beautifully metaphoric: "When the car moved, her armfat swung like heavy washing in the wind. Now it hung down like a fleshy curtain...." She takes up themes and phrases, repeating them and developing them through the work like a jazz musician in a well crafted solo. And yet, despite her daring facility with the language, the usage rarely becomes cumbersome or self indulgent. Once or twice she overextends her reach - "Rahel was like an excited mosquito on a leash," didn't seem to work no matter what I did with it - but most of the time she got every possible ounce of meaning out of her words. The story itself starts slowly, requiring perseverance through the first eager details, where the characters, language, and hints of a plot all press to the surface, alternately revealing and deceptive. The whirl of past and present and the numerous family members seem slightly confusing at first, like the swarm of Communists around Chacko's Plymouth. As names become familiar, the events are gradually brought into focus, but the sense of uncertainty remains. This is not a mystery where we wonder who did what - committed some crime or caused some concrete occurrence. Instead, the mystery here is to figure out who these people are, what their story is, and what horrible event has finally exposed their middle class souls as cold and deliberately cruel. The memories of the older Rahel and the silence of the older Estha are the only clues we have. The children are the innocent ones here, despite the sins they commit. The Syrian Christians and the Communists and the Anglophiles fight to redeem them, to teach them how to live properly, yet eventually only show them death. The children, the Untouchable Velutha, their divorced mother Ammu, who dares to love again - these are the ones who are truly alive. The ones who come out to touch the river while the others perform elaborate plays of respectability. When they are young, there is a certain bond between the twins - "Esthappen and Rahel thought of themselves together as Me, and separately, individually, as We or Us." Even after they are grown and have been separated, there is still a union between them that almost seems necessary to make them whole. However important their unity is to their identity and survival, it seems to be dangerous to those around them, especially those who are close to them. But this danger is more a result of innocence than intent - innocence which cannot survive in the confused mixture of Far Eastern and European society. The small things are preserved, while the big things are perilously ignored. The God of Small Things stands out as a book which strikes at several levels. There is a remarkable awareness of language, of story, and of character. This is her first novel, and perhaps Roy drew from her own past, her own psychology, for the story, which would explain the rich sense of contradiction within the characters. Regardless, the characters are agonizingly real at every moment, and we quickly become involved with them directly. A thoroughly enjoyable read. -Chris |
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