Goddess of Crap !. Review on God Of Small Things, The - Arundhati Roy

Namaskaaram Ms. Roy,

Pardon me for being so late to comment on your international literary sensation & booker prize winner masterpiece: The God of small things

You see, it is only recently that I have recovered from the shock of reading your book & even though I've made my best efforts to keep away from it, as they say ''What you try to ignore always jumps at your face'' so is your book & you. Time & again I find myself reading either about your first & only work to fame or about some article/stunt you pulled to keep your image fresh in public's mind. The only to get over this fully is to have a tête-à-tête [albeit onesided] with you through this letter & hope writing this would finally get this out of my system.

I first read about you in the papers & was proud to learn that you were the first Indian citizen to win a Booker Prize & also a million-dollar book deal! Being a ardent booklover, I lost no time in getting a copy of your book.........it now ranks the 2nd worse book I ever read in my life [the only book I've given away & it cost me 500 bucks!] & what's even worse is the fact that this book has been penned down by an Indian author, to titillate the foreign audience. If it would not be for my silly habit of never leaving a book mid-way, I'd never have completed reading this crap, which you call your best work & one that gave you all the undeserved fame/money.

First thing that strikes the reader is that your book reads like a travelogues of Kerala, I agree that this place which is referred to God's Own Country is truly one of the most cultured & heritage of India but Maam, why should we want to read all that in a novel? We can always find the same, infact much better information when we log on to Kerala.com ! Also the language of your book is too hard for a regular reader like me then how can you expect people reading such colloquial language for the first time to finish/understand your book. I think you should've stuck to screenplays for television & films, where you could get away with writing simple silly stories.

You say the book is autobiographical then am I free to assume you are the narrator Estha? The babe who has a twin brother Rahel & on whom the whole godly story rotates, right? So, you belong to a middle-class Indian family and your mother Ammu is a divorcee who has suffered in her arranged marriage and is now back to her parents house, with her lovable twins. Here you encounter your maternal uncles, grandparents, your cousins & a servant, who becomes pally with you & your brother. Soon your mom would fall in love with this servant and life would become more miserable for you twins as she faces oppositions from her family & society won’t allow it. If I am not mistaken, isn't your mom a divorcee & now sharing her life with her ''companion''? Ammu in your story is from the 60's & yes the times were much difficult then, but would it have been very difficult to show her as a brave lady fighting for her love? Does this love affair have to end in such tragedy? Also why is their meeting totally devoid of talk & all you talk about is their lustful mating? I guess since you witnessed all this as a child, you couldn’t make the difference, right?

Naturally, falling victim to the internal jealousies & social prejudices, your family suffers tragedy after tragedy & you feel as though the God of Small Things has let you all down. But Maam, why blame poor god for your own wrongdoings? Is it God who tells you to be unhappy even when you have been raised in a wealthy home & later you get married to a understanding guy, is it his wish that you always fret & long to be home, searching for an ''aim'' in life? Did he tell you that you would finally find solace with your own brother? Does God preach this incestuous behaviour? Then why blame God?

Am I asking too many questions? Sorry about that but these are just a few of the unanswered questions that come to the mind of the poor reader who is miserably entangled in your web of always unhappy & doomed characters. Besides blaming God for all things going wrong in your lives, you have tried to give an in-depth look into the Indian Society, through the eyes of innocent children. The theme of your story was to say that: Children are innocent; grownups are bad. But when your twins grow up they become even worse than most grownups we have ever known! This is a totally misleading book that gives a very wrong impression of middle-class Indians, who are shown as non-progressive & prejudiced.

I once read a your reply to when or whether you will write more novels ''I don't believe I must write another book just because I'm a writer''.

I fully agree with your thoughts and THANK U, Ms. Roy :) believe me your literary writing ''work'' will not be missed at all.

greatfully yours, [till u write another ''book'']

a royphobic reader

My Word:

Honestly, am out of words now! just stay away from this book :)