“Never again will a single story be told as though it’s the only one.”
Recently I started with, again after almost 10 years, for second time, The God of Small things. This book is & will always be very close to my heart. It’s simple yet very powerfully moving, it’s that rare a classic.
The Author : As someone has rightly said “Roy was a phenomenon.” She is highly controversial, yet one of the most talked about authors of India. This is her only book till date. Before fiction she wrote a few screenplays & won a national award for Best screenplay too. She acted in two films including one with Shahrukh Khan! Now go google it!
The book : TGOST is “more than” semi-autobiographical account of Roy’s childhood in Aymenem in Kottayam, Kerala. This book requires lot of patience & a sincere read. But at the end, you will be a winner & very content as a reader.
Story
It’s a story of love laws.. *The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how.
And how much.
Ipe family – Pappachi is settled in Ayemenem with Mammachi & their children Chako & Ammu. Baby Kochamma, Pappachi’s sister is a spinster. Chacko, goes to study at Oxford & marry Margaret Kochamma. When Sophie Mol, their daughter is born, Margaret announces to Chako that she loves someone else. They divorce & Chako comes back to India to take care of Mammachi’s business “Paradise pickles & preserves.” Ammu, when 16, fed up of her parents, reaches Kolkata to an Aunt’s place. There she meets & marries her drink-a-holic husband & has two children, two egg twins, Estha & Rahel. When children turn two, Ammu divorces & comes to Ayemenem House.
Year 1969: Estha & Rahel are seven years. Margaret Kochamma & Sophie Mol visits India to celebrate Christmas. Ammu starts loving Velutha, an untouchable. The family finds out & locks Ammu in a room. The children decide to leave the house & set out in a boat across river Meenanchal to an abandoned house during which Sophie drowns. Now to save family’s pride (Ammu’s affair with Velutha) & save Estha & Rahel from getting involved in death of Sophie, Baby Kochamma cooks up a story to Police & convinces Estha to name Velutha as their abductor & murderer of Sophie. This whole episode becomes the turning point in the life of children after which their life will change forever. Later Estha is returned to his father in Kolkata & Ammu is asked to leave Ayemenem house.
Ammu dies four years later. Rahel leaves Ayemenem at 16 to join architecture in Delhi, marries, goes to USA & divorce later. Chacko has moved to Canada & Mammachi has died. Baby Kochamma is alive & lives in Ayemenem house.
Year 1993: Estha’s father gets a job in Australia & he re-returns him to Ayemenem. Baby Kochamma writes to Rahel, who happily comes to meet Estha after 23 years. Now again, memory starts to haunt them as they revisit history & their childhood. Sooner they realise that they might be two egged, but their soul is one. They realise that they knew one another even before the life began (in their mother’s womb) & no one else understood them better & end up making love. Though the “narrator” “insists” that it’s the hideous grief & not love they shared.
In the story, there are many passages which are sheer bliss. The best two are:
1) A chapter called “Kochu Thomban” in which the twins (now adults) go to a local temple for an all night Kathakali performance based on Mahabharata. It’s a delightfully visual passage wherein you will feel as though you have been sitting through the performance. The way Roy compares Mahabharata to the story of twins is praiseworthy & just special.
2) The last chapter called “The Cost of Living” which is about Ammu’s first sexual encounter with Velutha. It’s a long love making scene where 11 pages are dedicated to aesthetic details of that moment & again is visual as though a movie running on cinema screen. It talks about hopes & the life’s promises.
Narration & style: It’s one grand epic prose. From start to finish. Roy weaves simple words in a language of her own & plays around with confidence. The similes & metaphors used here are unparalleled.
However simple the language may be, the book is very carefully & technically written. In the first chapter itself, the reader knows the whole story & all events which will take place. By going further, through flashbacks, & memories in flashbacks, Roy builds up the small things, heartbeat by heartbeat which happened in the run up to or the aftereffect of an event. The shifting between memories in past & present, & between the various scenes however is effortless for the reader. The main events:
1) Ammu’s affair with Velutha
2) Estha’s naming Velutha as culprit
3) “Welcome home our Sophie Mol”
4) “Eshta’s return” & re-return
5) Drowning of Sophie Mol.
are not narrated as one chain of thoughts. They will repeat throughout the narrative, so that a scene will appear many times with different light being thrown upon & different parts & perspectives being played by various characters in it.
It’s a web of thoughts as they appear & when they appear to seven years child’s (Rahel’s) memory.
Some other techniques used are:
1) Repeating words in same sentence.
2) Repeating a few quotes quite often throughout the book.
3) Weird Upper Case for few words to emphasize the child’s perspective which may be altogether irrelevant to an adult.
4) Joining all the words of a sentence to impart a different meaning to them altogether.
The character building is very powerful & dynamic. You will connect with them at one go & they will feel like a part of your everyday life. Esp the twins (as children), Chako & Baby Kochamma.
AND you will never be able to forget it throughout your life. Trust me! Such is the overall effect of this riotous, crazy, mesmerizing, profound, unceasing prose.
Although I cant think of any drawbacks, but will like to point two points:
1) The pace. This novel has NO pace. Because the reader knows the story & it’s about small things which together make our lives what it is, the “pace” thing doesn’t work here.
2) The unnecessary details. Sometimes Roy would derange from the main theme & forget how much she is talking about & why??
A few passages are boring indeed. Like – When Chako goes to Comrade Pillai’s house, Roy starts describing his wife, son, mother, niece. Their antics. Their clothes. The colour of walls. Wall hangings. The snacks being served. The color & texture of snacks. Type of coffee….& all this keeps stretching for pages to come!!!
This book however is highly criticized too. A few people just write it off. Some say the incest is awful. People from Kerala are highly upset about upsetting the class, social & political order in the course of book.
TGOST is a trophy, but still it will always be criticized.
My recommendation : A definite YES. Every single second you spend reading it would be worth for your whole life.
GoGoGo!
She kissed his closed eyes and stood up. Velutha with his back against the mangosteen tree watched her walk away.
She had a dry rose in her hair.
She turned to say it once again : ‘Naaley.’
Tomorrow.
