God of Small Things

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

It took me a while to really work out how to talk about this book. This is definitely a piece that demands meditation. The title itself is enough to give one pause for months before continuing.

The God of Small Things speaks to the importance of small things. Roy is speaking more from an Eastern philosophical perspective than the Don't Sweat the Small Stuff type antimeditation that's become so popular in the U.S. The small things in life are the most essential.

Throughout the book, Roy refers to things as small, and I have to remind myself to take note of them. On page 121:

Something lay buried in the ground. Under grass. Under twenty-three years of June rain.
A small forgotten thing.
Nothing that the world would miss.
A child's plastic wristwatch with the time painted on it.
Ten to two, it said.

It is so easy to read over such things and let them go as overdetail or the unnecessarily mundane. But Roy has made note of the small things, and so we wait for this wristwatch to reappear, as it ever-so-hauntingly will.

The Orangedrink Lemondrink Man is so casual about his introduction of child Estha to sexuality. "Now if you'll kindly hold this for me," he says (74), and, the way Roy writes it is just as small as that wristwatch.

The carelessness of Ammu's statement, "When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less" (107). Impatient mothers say such things, but the scene knells through God of Small Things and had such a realness. A reminder of those tiny things our parents said, which they didn't mean, but we clung to so painfully as children. A moment of pause to think, "How easily I can hurt someone else."

The effect of these words would not leave me for the entirety of the book, looming over each word, and they continue to affect me still.

And the Air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. The big Things lurk unsaid Inside. (136)

They introduce themselves. A monk once told me of the importance of folding one's clothing before stepping into the bath.

Moments of sad truth, and some sort of reality forms via this meditation-- there is something beautiful in doing the terrible:
"Let's leave one alive so that it can be lonely," Sophie Mol suggested. Rahel ignored her and killed them all. (177)

The chapter, "The God of Small Things" is pure action, and most of it minute in detail. Love mixes in with the details of nature, even "vomit-green" is made to be beautiful.

Instinctively they stuck to the Small Things. The Big Things ever lurked inside. They knew there was nowhere for them to go. They had no future. So they stuck to the Small Things. (320)

There's nothing really to say about this book. If you haven't, read it, and read every word slowly. Love is in the tiniest of details. Tragedy springs from a small escape. Sex will lose its name.

The Inspector asked his question. Estha’s mouth said Yes.
Childhood tiptoed out.
Silence slid in like a bolt.
Someone switched off the light and Velutha disappeared. (303)

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