Will I love The God of Small Things?

Deeply immersive and politically subversive.

This is a novel that I have read again over the years, gifted to my loved ones, and recommended to my friends. Set in Kerala (India) between the early 1960s and early 1990s, the book tells the story of the ill-fated love between an upper caste woman and a lower caste man, set against the grain of parallel stories and events involving other members of the two characters' families and village.

What struck me was the profound humanity with which the motivations and worldviews of all characters are depicted and the author's ability to illustrate the chain of suffering that… show more.

As a sucker for beautiful writing, this book had me from the first page, and I couldn’t put it down. So many issues that had been part of my childhood culture resonated with me while it also showed me many others from a part of India that I had never even visited. 

Though sweeping in its scope, it drills down into a very human story with all its pain and love. It weaves myth, story, real life, love, loss, and the meaning of family. It was one of the first novels by an Indian woman that transcended cultures, gender, and… show more.

This book is as close to home for me as it gets. It won the Booker when I was in high school but I wouldn’t read it before college because I was told – wrongly – by someone who lacked an imagination that they found it opaque.

I was happy to find that it shone with beautiful clarity when I finally read it. I haven’t trusted random people’s book recommendations ever since. The extreme contradictions – the most progressive and the most regressive, revolution and complacency – and their uncanny coexistence in Kerala society and politics can only emerge in… show more.

A friend recommended it as her favourite-ever book. My daughter declared it “some literary bulls*t” (in the most complimentary way). So how on earth do I describe The God of Small Things? I love it for its intricate, scattered-pieces-of-a-puzzle plotting, its vivid and unconventional language (channeled through the minds of children), and the immersion in a southern Indian culture and setting.

This is not a page-turning read, but it is beautiful, tragic, and unforgettable.   

I hadn’t been to India when first I read this. 

But when I did go to Kerala, I thought I’d been there already, because it’s so exactly as Roy describes it. She had taken me there already by word.

That’s the journey I want my readers to be able to take.

Camus said that ‘fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth’ and by that measure this is the most dazzling, intelligent, colourful and complex of ‘lies’ telling the truth about injustice, the caste system, the agony of history, and misogyny.

The God of Small Things is a beautiful book filled with multi-layered characters, compelling prose as lyrical as poetry and complex, heart-breaking themes. The hint of an unknown threat looming over the story adds a melancholic tone to this book about post-colonial India. Perhaps that’s why this book resonated so deeply with me – because here too, in post-colonial and post-apartheid South Africa, our small lives are shadowed by larger forces than we can comprehend and yet hope and the beauty of love echo throughout our land. Switching timelines from present to past, often speaking in a “special” language, Roy’s… show more.

I read this book while at university and I was wowed by the language, the story, the sheer beauty of it. It covers such disparate themes, makes such important points but never at the expense of the story. Just beautiful. It was the first book I read by an Indian Booker prize winner and it inspired me – I think until then although I had always secretly wanted to be a writer, I never thought I would actually do it. This book made me ask myself, why not?