The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

It’s been a while since I’ve cried so much reading a book… not like a gentle tear but ugly crying…

It's been decades since this book came out but I don’t think I’d have experienced it the same way had I read it when I was a few years younger.

It’s a story about a dysfunctional family in Kerala, told through the eyes of two-egg twins, Rahel and Estha. The narrative shifts back and forth in time and between characters to unravel one tragic incident involving their cousin, Sophie Mol, in 1969 that teaches the twins how Things Can Change a Day.

“Perhaps it’s true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house—the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture—must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for. Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story.”

It’s a challenging read, not only because there is a sense of foreboding through the book, but also because of the troubling themes covered… so it really pushes you out of your comfort zone.

The language the author uses is so tactile, it invites you into the environment and immerses you in it. Her writing is bold, subtly funny, and unique, like how she emphasises certain words with unexpected capitalisations. There is so much nuance in every page, it would need multiple readings to unravel them all.

Outside of Rahel, Estha, their family, neighbors, and townsfolk, the characters of Nature, Indian Politics, Casteism, Religion, and Patriarchy provide key context, influences, and triggers in the actions and consequences of this family. It’s fascinating and heartbreaking… and that’s the best way I can describe this book. You are in awe while being methodically emotionally shattered. While intense, I would definitely recommend it if you are feeling up to it.

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“It is only now, these years later, that Rahel with adult hindsight recognized the sweetness of that gesture. A grown man entertaining three raccoons, treating them like real ladies. Instinctively colluding in the conspiracy of their fiction, taking care not to decimate it with adult carelessness. Or affection.

It is after all so easy to shatter a story. To break a chain of thought. To ruin a fragment of a dream being carried around carefully like a piece of porcelain.

To let it be, to travel with it, as Velutha did, is much the harder thing to do.”

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Some of our favorite quotes from the book