God of Small Things

Raising children in a changing India

This book is skillfully written showing how difficult life can become for children and their parents when traditions and familiar things are changed forever as the influence of a great nation brings its own forms of education and traditions to bear on another great but politically weaker nation. The needs of the young and helpless must not be overlooked and dealt with harshly and indifferently in these circumstances, as the authoress cleverly and clearly portrays.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Difficult read

I had to force myself to finish this book. The author frequently switch from one time frame to another. In the end, it was an interesting story but the attention to detail made it a bit tedious to read.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Beautiful!

I really don't understand where the bad reviews are coming from. In all honesty, this is not a light read, but its genius! Roy's syntax and diction further highlight the tradgic events of the story. It is dazzling - I couldn't put it down! I found myself thinking about it even when I wasn't reading it. It's perfect.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Human being

A soon as I started to read God of Small Things, I felt it was going to be one of those books that I will never finish. Guess what? I did finish it. It was a bit confusing. The author sometimes went into great dept. Still, I must admit that this book had beautiful language at parts. Her description was great but not perfect. Estha and Rahel¿s ambassador titles were really funny!! I couldn¿t help feeling sorry for Ammu and the unfairness of the society she lived in. The author¿s greater message was very important. I don¿t regret reading it all.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

A Book Worth Reading

I can understand how other reviewers found the book to be somewhat confusing and expansive but ultimatly I thought it was very well written and utterly haunting. I read the book once and although I understood the plot of the story I really only appreciated the nuances and detail after finishing it for the second time. Once you know what will happen in the novel, you can understand sentences that otherwise seem random and confusing. Ex. 'A young man with an old man's mouth' makes more sense once you realize the fate of one of the novel's characters.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Not my favorite

Wasnt too crazy about this read. While the stucture is widely praised I found it to be quite confusing and distracted me from the story by needing to figure iut if it was past and present. There were also a few plot lines that went underdevoped and unresolved. I know this is a successful book but I was left underwhelmed

life changing

this is quite simply a MUST-READ. just do it. and then read it again. and then buy a copy for all of the readers in your life.

Amazing

this is the second time I have read this amazing book. It is a difficult story to read but touches on the basis of hate, which is fear. The story is beautifically written and the reader is captivated from the beginning. It is a tragic story and the hero is Velutha the villian is the unhappy jealous family. I will read this book again.

buy it

gorgeous. haunting.

Delicious Writing

I have had a love affair with this novel for over 10 years now. I read a lot and this novel stands in a class on its own. I have never read another novel that has come close to matching the grace of her delicious writing style. The story itself is small, but the words dance across the pages in a way that makes you stop and pause on the most beautiful ones.
I could not put this book down. It is one of the very few novels that I continue to read over and over again and it saddens me that Arundhati Roy never wrote another novel of this kind.

So many beautiful words that never get to the point

Reading this book is intoxicating in a sense; the prose is rich and paints incredible pictures and characters. But it plays upon one theme and never fully explains it. The plot ping-pongs distractingly between present and past, and never does a full job of connecting the dots between the two. I got to the end feeling a bit cheated - all these gorgeous words and interesting characters, and what the heck happened? A better flashback/historical fiction book is "The Madonnas of Leningrad".

Had to Re-Read It the Moment I Finished

I often re-read my favorite books, but the moment I finished this one I had to start from the beginning. Captivating and complex, it is a beautifully told story. I would recommend it to friends and family.

Truly about the Small Things

The one thing that stuck with me even after I read this book were the twins. They are so real to me that I feel everything they are feeling, I cherished all of the little sayings they had, the childish things they did and their relationship with their mother. They're so likable you feel like you know them. I read this book slowly because I wanted to capture all of the beautiful language of Mrs.Roy and the atmosphere she created and I recommend the same for you.

I don't know why I hadn't read this book before!

I loved the book. I loved reading about a period of India's history that I had not read before. I liked the way the book made me feel uneasy with some of the characters they are unpredictable and complex like most of us.

Disappointing

This book could have benefitted immensely from the pen of a skilled editor. There is a reason that the language of poetry is generally limited to shorter works - most people can't pull it off well and consistently for 320 pages. Roy is one of those people.
The adult characters in the book are completely underdeveloped. The only ones that seemed real at all were the childhood Rahel and Estha.
I find it interesting that many reviewers refer to Roy's artistic foreshadowing; to me it was not so much foreshadowing as shouting. It was not difficult to predict the general details of the climax within the first few chapters.

Disapointed

I was disgusted by two things:
1. E. Pelivs was molested in the movie theater
2. The two egg twins committed incest

The book seemed to have taken me F O R E V E R to read, it was confusing to follow as the author jumps around in her writings. I was left with a sour taste and was disapointed with the story entirely.

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

genious

a literary masterpiece!

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Tries Too Hard

I think Roy had an interesting plot, but while I thought her prose to be beautiful at first, soon became tiresome and dull. By the time I finished it, I genuinely hated this book. She tries too hard to make the book 'deep' by using a poetic style, and it just comes of forced and trite. I also disliked all the characters and had a hard time caring what happened to any of them.

One of the few books I've reread more than twice

Read this book! You will fall in love! I am an avid reader and rarely reread books. But this book is haunting in its beauty and at least once every year or two, I find myself drawn to read it again. And each time I fall more in love with Arundhati's poetic story telling. This remains my all time favorite book.

Touched my soul with her words

It really doesn't surprise me that so many readers thought this book was awful. In many ways, it was like reading an artistic collage but oh the beauty within the words is indescribable. I found myself reading paragraphs aloud to my husband so that he could share in the joy. Touching on real life and not the play acting that passes for life, Roy (who is a she not a he) speaks to the spark of the eternal in all of us and makes us contemplate that for human beings the boundaries, prejudices, beliefs, norms are all self imposed prisons and the bars can and need to be broken open and exposed. I am 67 years old and this is now my favorite book of all time.