The God of Small Things

More and more, I read people's facebook or blog or orkut that say one of their favorite books is The God of Small Things. And some of the people I know who have this book listed as their favorites I know hardly understand the nuances Arundhati Roy includes in this novel or fully grasp what exactly she is writing between the covers. Amazon's review states:

"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."

What this fails to mention, however, is that Roy, herself, has been a prolific writer, mostly on issues of societal, cultural, and political concern. Some of these concerns are alluded to throughout the course of the novel. Environmental concerns are addressed in the manner in which she describes the pollution in the river, caused by pesticides bought with loans from the World Bank (also, in this addressing the impact of globalization on the environment), but also in the means of how she juxtaposes the life of the family with that of Velutha's- which is arguably more attuned with and at one with, nature.

The obvious "point" that people pull from this novel is the discussion of caste and the separation of people, whom love each other, because of this system. However, it is not so simplistic. It also concerns not only a division on caste, but also class, and societal affiliations. Velutha, an untouchable, laborer, with affiliations to the Communist Party, does not seem to mix with the idea of what the "respectable" Christian, middle class wants. It is not, then, just a caste issue. Overall, Roy is utilizing this family to critique the Christian community in Kerala, not just as a reiteration of what so many other writers have commented on in the past. To simplify her points to only being about caste neglects the complexity of the novel and the complexity of Roy's arguments on the positions she takes in real life.

The Amazon review states that this would be a great read and not hard to understand for English readers (read: Western readers) however, I would also argue that so much of the context and points of the story are lost because of the failure to fully understand and take into consideration the rich social fabric Arundhati Roy composes in this novel.

Perhaps, this can shed a little more light on who Arundhati Roy is and some of the issues she addresses within God of Small Things, in a way that weaves into a stirring story. In her own words, it is about power and power relations and her way of seeing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ2as-l_LSk&feature=related