Product Description

The literary phenomenon of the year, again.

More magical than Mistry, more of a rollicking good read than Rushdie, more nerve-tinglingly imagined than Naipaul, here, perhaps, is the greatest Indian novel by a woman. Arundhati Roy has written an astonishingly rich, fertile novel, teeming with life, colour, heart-stopping language, wry comedy and a hint of magical realism.

Set against a background of political turbulence in Kerala, Southern India, The God of Small Things tells the story of twins Esthappen and Rahel. Amongst the vats of banana jam and heaps of peppercorns in their grandmother's factory, they try to craft a childhood for themselves amidst what constitutes their family - their lonely, lovely mother, their beloved Uncle Chacko (pickle baron, radical Marxist and bottom-pincher) and their avowed enemy Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grand-aunt).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2502 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-05
• Binding: Paperback
• 350 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In her first novel, award-winning Indian screenwriter Arundhati Roy conjures a whoosh of wordplay that rises from the pages like a brilliant jazz improvisation. The God of Small Things is nominally the story of young twins Rahel and Estha and the rest of their family, but the book feels like a million stories spinning out indefinitely; it is the product of a genius child-mind that takes everything in and transforms it in an alchemy of poetry. The God of Small Things is at once exotic and familiar to the Western reader, written in an English that's completely new and invigorated by the Asian Indian influences of culture and language.

William Dalyrmple, Harpers and Queen.
`genuinely a masterpiece, utterly exceptional in every way,

Synopsis
Set against a background of political turbulence in Kerala, this novel tells the story of twins Esthappen and Rahel. Amongst the vats of banana jam and heaps of peppercorns in their grandmother's factory they try to craft a childhood for themselves amidst what constitutes their family.

Customer Reviews

Too many small things
I really, really wanted to like this book. Arundhati Roy's prose is beautiful in places with a light, comic touch in others but the bittiness of the story overwhelmed me in the end and I found myself flicking through passages in the second half of the book to get to the end. It didn't help that nearly all the main (adult) characters were so flawed as to be alienating. There was too much dark and not enough light. For a book that weaves from narrator to narrator, back and forth to a painful climax in seamless fashion read Jon MacGregor's If No-one Speaks of Remarkable Things.

A TREAT!
I have reference this book in my previous review and thought I should drop a note here. This book definitely deserves the BOOKER award! The author just transports you to her own world and makes you part of it - and some of the references are just brillant. Roy description of the poor and the rich with reference a candle light is simply cunning! The way she writes about the pickles just makes you imagine the smell of the spices and also reminds of memories of hearing the rain falling on a very dry soil and the earthy smell just come back to you.....

Overall this is a book which can read and re-read over a number of times over and over again! It is a definite MUST HAVE!

Beautiful
This book delicately unravels it's story through a beautifully woven thread of images and chokingly poignant language. This book lies somewhere between a novel and poetry and a work of art. There are paragraphs so wonderfully written they clutch at the back of your throat and make you gasp. Sentences which dance through your mind for days.
I can't see how the book could be described as "hard work". Read it and appreciate every word, every splash of colour, every touch of irony, the beauty of human nature and the small things.