Book 4: THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS - Arundhati Roy - discussion

[amner]

I'm finding this hard work ... I'll be with you all in a couple of days
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[Colyngbourne]

Yes, bloody hard going. I’m glad I’ve read it, but what was all the fuss about?

The over-lush density of description, a lot of which sits uneasily and is completely frou-frou on what is already a frou-frou story told in an unhelpfully convoluted way. It was difficult to steer a way through this book, between the Naxalites and the Communism, the Indian Orthodox Xianity and the caste system. We were distracted from the plot and the impact by repeated wearisome detours into the history of the characters (a whole chapter on Chacko’s ex-wife’s in the last ninety pages of the book) and such a flattened ending that I wished I’d finished the book a few pages earlier.

I enjoyed the story when we were on the narrative of the twins but deviations into Ammu (whom I didn’t really appreciate as a rounded character) and Baby Kochamma were simply annoying and detracted from where I had presumed the heart of the story lay, with the twins. Good grief, how it meandered and spent time enjoying itself describing foliage and tropical forest in over-indulgent detail. I disliked the forced ‘child-isms’ – Bar Nowl, Lay Ter, A Wake, A Live, A Lert – let alone that ‘Dum Dum’ business and the Locusts-Stand-I-whatsit thingy. The long, winding descriptions followed by. Short terse adjectives. Sentences without verbs. Okay for some time. But an irritant over 300 pages. Together with the Painfully Dragged-Out Capitalisation of Significant Words. Was I interested at all in the metaphor (if that’s what it was) of Pappachi’s moth? Indeed no.

Was the story believable? Well, it was signposted a mile off and never lived up to the horror implied (though Velutha’s death was quite gruesome). I never was enthralled by the Comrade Pillai bits, or the Kathakali dances - particularly that weird few pages about Karna and Kunti, which I know was significant to the events between Velutha and Ammu etc. but was brain-yawning all the same.

Oh, and all that repeated sentences thing – her fountain in a Love-in-Tokyo, two-egg twins, a viable die-able age, a ‘something-shaped hole in the universe’, Estha with his puff hair….it made me want to throw the book across the room, and that’s something I have never done (even with Geraldine Brooks’ Year of Wonders).

I am amazed that Roy won the Booker for this but these were the other contenders -

The Essence of the Thing – Madeleine St. John
Grace Notes – Bernard McLaverty
The Underground Man – Mick Jackson
Quarantine – Jim Crace
Europa – Tim Parks

Of these I have only read the Jim Crace but would have voted for that above this.

[pandop]

Only managed to get hold of the book on moday (had to wait for it to be returned) - will be with you asap

[joy]

I finished this several weeks ago so I have already forgotten most of the detail. It did draw me to read on to the end but there were a lot of irritations along the way in the convoluted jumping about and the language. Oh, the language - I kept mumbling under my breath "stop being pretentious and get on with it" but then without all that I guess the story would have been very thin.
Does anyone else tend to avoid anything nominated for the Booker Prize in the belief that they will be just like this - all show and no substance?

[Colyngbourne]

I have to say that I forget very quickly what was a Booker book and what wasn't but I know I really enjoyed Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin which won a couple of years ago, and I'm tempted to read Oryx and Crake on the strength of that. I don't generally read the list or purposefully avoid it - the one this year that resembles the Columbine massacre story (can't remember the title) also tempts me, but there is not a bit of Brick Lane's blurb/publicity that would make me go near that yet.

Sometimes I think there's too much overweening effort to make a book seem 'worthy' of being on the list. This one definitely over-egged the pudding until it was nothing but egg.

[pandop]

well I am only just up to chapter 8, and I must admit I am struggling :?

I will do my best to finish it though, as I dont like giving up on books, and I never finsihed TMWWT

Hazel

[amner]

Time to cast me into the pit and shower my twitching body with coarse lime.

I have given up. The God of Small Things will be, with no little relief, excised from my possession today and dropped unceremoniously back into the library drop-bin where it belongs. I couldn't finish it, people, and all the while it sits next to me it acts like an anti-book, draining the energy from me, urging me not to read it, not to read anything.

Bring on Will Self.
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[Colyngbourne]

*applauds wildly*
Following last Friday night's viewing, I think I qualify with Self as a 'grumpy old man' - this book goes into my Top 10 worst ever.

[pandop]

Well I am still struggling along, and I have worked out what the problem is (other than that Roy is trying too hard to be clever) I havent engaged with any of the characters - I really couldnt care less what happens to them, so there is no incentive to keep reading.

I will though as I am determined not to let it beat me

H

[Colyngbourne]

Thinking back (though it pains me :oops: ) I just about engaged with the boy twin (was his name Estha?) but barely so and suffocating under the density of every sentence...

[pandop]

<prepares to hurl book at wall in truimph, remebers it is a library copy, and puts it in bag to gently hurl into book drop>

I was somewhat surprised to finish the book last night (I wasnt expecting so many pages of adverts in the back :roll: ) especially as it didnt seem to 'end'. Was it just me, or was it unclear when the events in the last chapter took place, and why exactly the twins mother died?

most of the characters in this book annoyed me for one reason or another, as did the backwards reading/writing and the Capitalisation of Significant Words - all in all I felt that Roy was Trying Too Hard to be Clever, and it just didnt work for me. :(

apologies to whoever suggested this, but I have never been so glad to finish a book, as it was having a negative effect on my other reading (felt guilty reading anything else, as I knew I should be getting on with this, but lack of engagement meant I didnt care what happened, and so didnt have a burning desire to pick up the book)

Hazel

[Colyngbourne]

If Columbianus Rex is around, it'd be good to hear what they made of it, seeing as everyone else has given it an unqualified thumbs-down. I warned my RL bookgroup off it last night - rather prejudicially so, but I couldn't bear to think of any of them suffering as we did. :cry:

[amner]

Hazelweller wrote:it was having a negative effect on my other reading (felt guilty reading anything else, as I knew I should be getting on with this, but lack of engagement meant I didnt care what happened, and so didnt have a burning desire to pick up the book)

Perfect summation of my feelings. I'm blasting through a crappy crime novel now (almost finished in just two sittings) just to try and forget. Dorian still hasn't turned up from QPD, but somehow I don't think that'll put the brakes on like TGoST did.
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[pandop]

I am ducking out of the next book, should be back for the next one though

personally I have returned to fantasy, although it is a new book, to try and get TGOST out of my head, nearly had to resort to a re-read!

Hazel

[Lucoid]

As a story I thought, for the most part, it was great. As a work of accomplished artistic writing I thought, for the most part, it was pants.

I found the backwards and forwards flow of past and present hard to follow, as the plot jumped all over the place in the first half - I normally like novels that play with time in this way but Roy doesn't seem to have mastered it. And what on earth were those terrible gratuitous sex scenes there for, messing up the ending? To throw me off balance? Why?

Though I enjoyed the plot itself, I won't be re-reading this. It just didn't meet the mark, and Roy seemed determined to show off at every opportunity.

A good story ruined. Such a shame.

Anyone know why it won the Booker Prize?

[youjustmightlikeit]

Hooray Lucoid,

i agree utterly, i hate to say i told you so, but i told you so.

Horrid isn't it; jarring, loosely held together, manipulative. The small section on casual child abuse was handled with a particular eye to palming an evil act off as a normality, therefore highlighting it's filthiness. This, in my opinion, smacks less of social awareness, and rather more of shock factor lazy art.

Maybe it could have worked if it wasn't all coupled with her appalingly florid style.
As for why it won the Booker, well just look at it's pedigree: style over substance, young attractive indian author (i can see the judges patting themselves on the back as they imagined deigning to invite her to a dinner party in Islington so they could marvel at her), and hey, just look at that cover man!

[Lucoid]

With regards to your comment that it was 'loosely held together', I'm guessing you're referring to both the past/present time thing and the several fashionable themes that were running about all over the place in a big old scribble (at this point I am imagining a drawing of Mr Messy).

[amner]

Discussion here (http://palimpsest.org.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=274), in fact. We liked Dorian (http://palimpsest.org.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=294) considerably more.
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[Lucoid]

I did look at the discussion for Dorian as I read the original last year. I will get round to reading Self's version at some point as it sounds interesting, but probably not for a while.