A friend gave me his favourite book before I left for a flight, we agreed that it would make a great read for a plane ride. I called him when I landed and told him that Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things is actually the kind of book that you should read all in one night, wrapped in a blanket while chain-drinking tea, and we both started crying on the phone.
The novel follows twins, Esthappen and Rahel as well as their colourful family, and every chapter opens a new window into their lives. The more time you spend with the twins, the more you find out about the day that changed their lives—but in an upside-down, deconstructed timeline. This eclectic and misshapen storytelling device may sound confusing, but every single word and detail in the story holds so much meaning and purpose, and it all falls together in the end.
Roy’s story is set in India. Even if you’ve never been, Roy is so wonderfully descriptive that the setting comes alive and becomes an integral part of the story. Roy creates a world for Esthappen and Rahel, but she pulls you into it as well. Simple details and events are rendered so beautifully that they deliver a lot of meaning as a result. Read this book and “orange soda”, and “fizzy” won’t mean the same thing ever again.
This is also one of the best love stories I’ve read in a long time. This was mostly because for every sentence Roy wrote on the topic there were twelve creating context and preparing you to yearn, and want, and understand, and bite your nails, and mourn. You finish the book with a brick in your stomach because you had all the pieces from the beginning, but only Roy had the craftsmanship to put them together at the end and deliver a beautiful novel.
A few copies of The God of Small Things are available at the SFU Library.
