Review: The God of Small Things

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had first read the book years back, and I still sometimes pick up the book to remind myself of the joy it gave me the first time I read it. As the author herself states, the best stories are the ones that you already know.

"...the secret of Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again."

Though the details follow very slowly, you already almost know what it is about. It is all around us. We live in the story. I always feel that great writers take the yarn of truth and weave great fiction out of it. Sometimes, it is colored and mixed up so much that you can never see the origins. At other times, you begin to see glimpses of it. It is this truth underneath the fiction with which the you connect eventually and recognise a bit of your life. That is when the sadness of Rahel and Estha seeps into you.

The dampness of Kerala in monsoon is there to be felt, the paradise pickles are there to be smelt, the landscape is there for the senses to behold, but for me it is not about Kerala, or its politics, or the politics of caste.

"Cost of living climbed to unaffordable heights; though later, Baby Kochamma would say it was a small Price to Pay.
Was it?
Two lives...and a history lesson for future offenders."

It depends, what your answer would be. To me, it is about love, the pursuit of it, the longing for it. It makes you aspire for a world that knows the value of love above all.

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