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A review by tessieferro
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
dark
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
"Nothing mattered much. Nothing much mattered, And the less it mattered, the less it mattered. It was never important enough. Because Worse Things had happened. In the country that she came from, poised forever between the terror of war and the horror of peace, Worse Things kept happening. So Small God laughed a hollow laugh, and skipped away cheerfully. Like a rich boy in shorts. He whistled, kicked stones. The source of his brittle elation was the relative smallness of his misfortune."
A masterpiece on every account. From the incredibly fleshed out and humanized characters, to the beautiful poetic prose to the way Arundhati Roy plays with the structure of the book and the english language and breaks it apart to convey emotion and innocence and a child-like view of the world. How she managed to fit so much of the world (of both humanity and politics) inside a 300 page book is a miracle.
"It didn't matter that the story had begun, because the kathakali discovered long ago that 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. The ones you can enter and inhabit comfortably. They don't deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don't surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover's skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don't. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won't."
Definitely a new favorite.
A masterpiece on every account. From the incredibly fleshed out and humanized characters, to the beautiful poetic prose to the way Arundhati Roy plays with the structure of the book and the english language and breaks it apart to convey emotion and innocence and a child-like view of the world. How she managed to fit so much of the world (of both humanity and politics) inside a 300 page book is a miracle.
"It didn't matter that the story had begun, because the kathakali discovered long ago that 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. The ones you can enter and inhabit comfortably. They don't deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don't surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover's skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don't. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won't."
Definitely a new favorite.