The God of small things

Arundhati Roy’s God of small things is the rare evergreen bestselling masterpiece, her one and only output for twenty years and the debut ‘issue’ to boot.

After twenty three years of it’s publication still it is found among the latest bestsellers in bookstores.

After winning the Booker Prize and selling eight million copies that is.

It’s a real rare masterpiece, the Booker Prize winning, forever hot selling, one and only, rare evergreen masterpiece.

Had she listened to Jeff Bezos of Amazon about following one’s natural strengths and remained an author we would have got lucky to read four more of her masterpieces, given that she took five years to write her first ‘issue’.

As a writer she has experimented with many narrative liberties, syntax and grammatical digressions to create special effects in written art, which is giving the expected effect.

Especially her ‘as thoughs’, sprinkled liberally all through the story are always sure to bring a smile or a sigh.

The book in general is an emotional roller coaster, shakes up and disturbs in all known emotions of people.

The eating, babbling,sleeping, loving, child birthing, riverbank mud mating, pickle making, drowning, beaten to death people.

This story which broke the ‘ancient laws of love’ of Kerala flows through the dreams of a few generations along with the flow of the river Meenachal.

It is gripping and disturbing enough to be read racing through a fourteen hour spell within a day.

This is a semi autobiographical story of overpowering guilt and overwhelming love of three souls which loved a man to death.

And hence bursting to be told by itself, as though the water that has built up pressure beyond the bearing capacity of the dam has no way else than to thrust and burst itself out.

Perhaps that is why the author could not write any other story because the story that could not but be told has been told and she had no more story of that sort to be told again.