The God of Small Things

Essential points: Both an eloquent exploration of life under colonialism and patriarchy as well as simply how “things can change in a day," this novel of a fallen family and society might appeal to readers who enjoyed Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s A Grain of Wheat, William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, or who simply want to learn more about the ranges of the human experience, from ecstatic love to terrible grief. Subjects this novel includes that some readers may be sensitive to (but which others may be thrilled to find included in their literature!): domestic abuse, rape/sexual assault of a child, incest, police brutality, death.

“If you're happy in a dream, Ammu, does that count?” Estha asked. "Does what count?" "The happiness—does it count?" —The God of Small Things, p203

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Entering The God of Small Things is like entering an exquisite and guilt-ridden nightmare, where glittering details and rich vistas fall away to reveal a child’s sticky fist, a dead visitor, a mother locked in a room, and a great crime (with you at fault), reeling past over and over again recurrently, as is the way with dreams. As with any dream, time in this novel is flexible, bending back and forth between 1969 and 1993—some moments expanding wide enough to swallow you. Each word is, nonetheless, carefully meted out by the author: despite a style lush with poetry and wordplay, Roy’s ability to conjure the haunts of childhood—and those haunted by a childhood imposed upon them by colonization, religion, caste, or violence—merits the highly stylized, figurative, and repetitive language and form.

Moving between 1969 and 1993, The God of Small Things tells the story of twins Estha and Rahel and their family. When they are young, Estha and Rahel are inseparable and largely happy. They live wealthy lives on their family’s estate and adjoining pickle factory, though their happiness, as with most children, derives mostly from receiving loving treatment from their family members. As they wait for the arrival in Kerala of their British cousin, called Sophie Mol, Estha and Rahel experience anxiety and new insight over who, in a stratified society, is allowed to love whom—and how much, how publically, and with what repercussions. These anxieties and insights strengthen and ripple ever larger throughout the novel, as various taboos around love are transgressed, sometimes with pain and trauma resultant; sometimes with joy.

Beyond Sophie Mol, Estha, and Rahel, characters central to The God of Small Things are Ammu, the twins’ sometimes “restless and untamed” (43) mother who listens to songs on the radio and never did follow the rules of love; Baby Kochamma, the twins’ TV-addicted, bitter great aunt, herself forever yearning after an unbloomed passion for Father Mulligan, an Irish missionary; Chacko, the twins’ uncle and Sophie Mol’s father, who shovels both food and an ambivalent devotion to Marxism (discordantly counter-balanced by his role as factory boss and landlord) into the hole left when Margaret, his British wife, Sophie Mol’s mother, divorced him. And of course there’s Velutha, skilled in engineering, devoted Marxist, beloved of Estha and Rahel—and their mother—who also happens to belong to the Untouchable caste of Paravans. Each character underscores various elements of the novel’s political and social commentary without being heavy-handed. Ammu’s behavior illustrates one possible result of women’s disenfranchisement; Chacko showcases cannibalistic Indian love for the British—despite his well-educated preaching against colonial oppressors; Velutha’s most loving and optimistic actions are no match for centuries of the “subliminal urge to destroy what [men] could neither subdue nor deify” (292) that is codified into caste, government, and police policy.

Unrelentingly vivid and beautiful, the novel is a painful and transformative one, where guilt and fate wrangle with one another and end up panting on the floor while the camera pans out to encompass the entire setting: Kottayam district, Kerala, India; a swift-flowing river, a lush jungle; a tangle of languages, religions, and traditions; too many people too disempowered for too long.