Absolutely Astounding. Review on God Of Small Things, The - Arundhati Roy

Roy's mastery of metaphor and creativity in wordplay may just be among the best in the English language today.This is unique literary accomplishment. The author's lyrical narrative flows as a stream of consciousness revelation. Her sentence structure has poetic license. Time is fluid. We are offered intriguing glimpses of her characters who describe themselves at one point as characters in a play. With her chapters as scenes, Ms. Roy draws us deeper and deeper into her book with the plot she spins. Her characters are interesting and the locale is exotic. They are Untouchables and Touchables, third world Communists, inbred Syrian Christians- Indians with modern attitudes that carry the influences of a colonial past, Marxism, and American culture impinging on the third world in a set compete with native fauna and flora to add to the fascination. I especially enjoyed her droll humor-the irony she sees in small things and everyday situations. In The God of Small Things she tells a haunting tragedy in hauntingly beautiful prose that borders on poetry.

Almost every scene painted itself visibly in my mind, but in particular I find myself dwelling on the OrangedrinkLemondrink Man, and on the airport scene: Ambassadors E. Pelvis and S. Insect; Rahel wrapping herself in the dirty curtain to escape the reeling changes in her life.

The title mislead me to believe that if I made it to the end, there would be something positive after all the tragedy that occurs, but there was only more tragedy and despair.As she says: ''Life can change in a moment.'' There is a lot of depth and meaning in this book.