A book that wrote itself. Review on God Of Small Things, The - Arundhati Roy

As I write about this book, Iam a wee bit embarrassed. For one, this classic should have been read earlier, much earlier. Secondly no reviews or praise can actually do justice to this masterpiece. Even here the word ‘Masterpiece’ becomes an understatement. Arundhati Roy, an author blessed by ‘The God of Small Things’, with an ability to make the cold, bland language of English sound magical and triumphant, writes an entire book filled with emotions, feelings neatly and effectively sculpted with the use of words.

Chew on these phrases for now. Chocolate is stickysweet and meltybrown. Bluegreyblue eyes snap A Wake, A Lert. Truths lie off the beaten path, lurking in shadow to transform the reader from tourist to traveller, from voyeur to intrepid explorer.

The book is a journey through time. A journey of a family and those who make a family. The book is a collage of experiences, with a hint, at times, of autobiographical wisdom. Every occasion and happening, described subtly and sublimely albeit effectively with words and phrases, captivating the situation as life would.

The book does not have a sequence. It merges the past and the present, memories and reality, weaving them together effortlessly, taking us through the lives of the people who live them.

The book is a journey of two young people, twins by birth, from a bittersweet childhood to an adulthood moulded by one bitter incident. Characters, the kind of people we see, feel and smell everyday fleet in and out of the book and the lives of the twins. As you read the book, you live the lives of the people you read about. You experience the chemistry, feel the joys and the passion, adore the loves, sing the songs, cry the tears, fear the fears, experience the pain, smell the scents, enjoy the backwaters of Kerala. You become the characters, a new character with every new line.

The book, in its own understated way, comments and analyses the transition of the Kerala of the sixties to the Kerala of today. The patriarchal families, third world communism, caste barriers, satellite television, nothing escapes the writers eye.

What sets the book apart for other recent Indian fiction is that unlike its contemporaries, all the richness of the tale with all its verbal jugglery comes in a neat, compact and small book. On the last page you are still a part of the story. You still want to turn another page. You till want to read more. Feel more. This is a book that probably formed and wrote itself. The author, I felt, just held the pen.