Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things

     Curiously, it is not the visiting Londoners who act as antagonists in The God of Small Things, but rather the Indians who wish to be more like them. Chakko tells his niece and nephew that they are “a family of Anglophiles. Pointed in the wrong direction, trapped outside their own history and unable to retrace their steps because their footsteps had been swept away” (51). With this in mind, it isn't surprising that it is Baby Kochamma's reverence for western culture that brings about the most trouble in the novel. The novel is similar to The Inheritance of Loss in this regard. Both novels feature children of some privilege at their center. Because of their youth, we do not begrudge them their privilege; instead, we identify with their dismay as they grow in awareness of the cruelties and injustices of the world around them.
     I think what is most distinctive about the book is the playfulness of its prose. At its best it helps readers identify with the child protagonists. A reader may begin to feel “childlike” after hearing a concessions-stand operator referred to as “the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man” again and again. Rahel imagines her scheduled afternoon nap as a “Gnap,” meant, I suppose, to sound like the word “Gnat,” indicating to us the somewhat irritating qualities of this daily chore from a child’s perspective. Sometimes, the narration is even interrupted by snippets from a song or rhyme (often in juxtaposition to a dark moment in the story). These non sequiturs are reminiscent of the wandering attentions of children, and specifically of Estha, who begins the novel so innocent and full of life that he is kicked out of the movie theater for so often erupting into song.
     The book is distinctive also for its structure. In the interview that follows the book, Roy states that writing the book inside-out was meant to make each moment “more poignant because it is viewed through the complex lens of the past and the present” (329). The first three-quarters of the book include numerous references to the fact that Sophie will die and a handful of scenes that take place after her death. By repeatedly mentioning that Sophie will die, and that this will change everything and ruin everyone, Roy creates a near-Victorian level of suspense. I’m not sure if the anticlimactic nature of Sophie Mol’s death (falling off a boat, unnoticed) is an intentional poke in the eye on Roy’s behalf, or a real failure to deliver what she promised.
     The novel makes better use of its structure in its final two chapters, which return to a theme first explored in the final sentences of chapter one. Readers are asked to consider “the Love Law,” regarding “who should be loved. And how. And how much” (311). Here Roy depicts a midnight tryst between Velutha and Ammu. An effective place for a nonlinear work to stop, I think, in that this is the “central” event in the story chronologically, it is so much anticipated by the reader, and, unlike the quiet death of Sophie Mol, the reader’s patience is thoroughly rewarded here with a scene that is mesmerizing, both as a standalone example of beautifully crafted prose, and in light of the whole story—we know the violent, terrible aftermath to which this quiet, intimate moment will lead, and there’s a deeply chilling effect to ending with such tragic irony.