God of Small Things

No cover — Arundhati Roy: God of Small Things (2011, HarperCollins Publishers Limited)

368 pages

English language

Published 2011 by HarperCollins Publishers Limited.

ISBN:: 978-0-00-738394-8

(2 reviews)

The year is 1969. In the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India, fraternal twins Esthappen and Rahel fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family. Their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu, (who loves by night the man her children love by day), fled an abusive marriage to live with their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), and their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt). When Chacko's English ex-wife brings their daughter for a Christmas visit, the twins learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever, beside their river... --back cover

48 editions

ju reviewed The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

A vivid slow motion drama

4 stars

This book had been on my lists for ages, before I even knew who was Arundhati Roy, and I was surprised that it took me a while to like it. There was something holding me back a little. It's a slow drama, like a train crash in slow motion, often foreshadowed through the labyrinthine construction between the present and different times in the past. Eventually, it started to make sense and the incredible writing gripped me.

rulapeep reviewed The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Review of 'The God of Small Things' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

A classic of post-colonial modern literature! Would give 4.5 if I could - took me a while to get into it but by the end was intensely moved

Subjects

Fiction, family life
Fiction, psychological
India, fiction
Twins, fiction