This book was chosen by Hazel, for our October read. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Some of us found it rather difficult to understand with the various customs and culture in the south of India (Kerala region).
Hazel wanted to come along to the meeting to explain to us why she had chosen this book, having worked with Indian people for several years she had come to understand and appreciate their culture and found them to be gentle folk. In fact, with her explanations it made the book and meeting come alive and some of us will be rereading the book.
The book opens in the year of 1969 in the state of Kerala on the southernmost tip of India when a sky blue Plymouth car with chrome tailfins is stranded on the highway amidst a Marxist workers demonstration. Inside the car sit two-egg twins Rahel and Esthappen.
Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, they fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family – their lonely, lovely mother Ammu ,who loves by night the man (Velutha) her children love by day. Their blind grandmother Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin) their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes Scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom pincher) Ammu’s brother, their enemy Baby Kochamma (ex-nun (her love life did not work out as she wished) and incumbent grandaunt, and the ghost of an imperial entomologist’s moth.
When their English cousin Sophie Mol (Chacko’s daughter) and her mother Margaret Kochamma arrive for a Christmas visit, Esthappen and Rahel learn that things can change in a day. Their lives can twist into new, ugly shapes even cease forever when their cousin Sophie Mol drowns in the river. The book takes on love, madness, hope and infinite joy.
A critic writes that apparently Arundhati Roy has given people a book that is anchored to anguish but fielded by magic and wit.
The book club members gave it a 8. (Pat G)
Crowlas & Ludgvan WI 