The God of Small Things may well be the saddest love story I've ever read. Arundhati Roy unravels the story almost painfully slowly, then hits you in the end with the sad truth of what she has been trying to say all along. The story is based in India and told from the perspectives of two-egg twins (fraternal twins), Estha and Rahel. It is almost poetic in its telling, sometimes sections even reminding me of the chorus line in a song.The real core of the story is about how one day changed the entire trajectory of the twins' lives. It all begins on the day their cousin, Sophie Mol, comes to Ayemenem, their home town. It's the week of Christmas and Sophie Mol's step-father has just died. Her arrival, and other events that happened in Cochin while the family awaited her arrival, led the twins on an adventure with irreversible consequences. Although, throughout the book the reader knows something terrible is going to happen, nothing prepared me for the ending it had. I don't want to say much more about the plot because I'm afraid I'll spoil it.
I do recommend reading it, though this is a book I feel (at least for me) needs to be read more than once in order to gain the full meaning of the words. Personally, I found the language to be confusing. And I found myself getting mixed up about some of the relationships among the characters in the beginning. Instead of trying to figure it out at the time, I decided to just go with it. In the end it all made sense, but a second read will help me clarify some of the things I may have missed.
This book has also been reviewed by:
Juli at Can I Borrow Your Book?
Books I Done Read
P.S. If any of you have reviewed this book, please leave a comment or email me (bexadler at yahoo) so I can link to it here. Thanks!
P.P.S. Don't forget to leave a comment here if you're interested in a free copy of He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not. Deadline to enter is May 11.
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4 comments:
Hi I reviewed God of Small Things here. http://caniborrowyourbook.blogspot.com/2008/04/god-of-small-things.html
I'm going to link to you if that is OK
Juli
Juli, of course it's OK for you to link to me! Thanks for asking :-)
"the entire projectory of the twins' lives" ~Sorry Bex, but because you mentioned in your other post on how people misuse words: I think the word you meant to use here was trajectory, not projectory.
PS: Reading "Oryx & Crake" and enjoying it very much. Thanks for the recommendation.
Chaz: Thanks, I changed it. I knew it was the wrong word (and spelled incorrectly because it was underlined) but I was being lazy. Luckily I have you to do my research for me :-)
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