Thursday, May 25, 2017

The God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy


9777
4 Stars

“Anything’s possible in Human Nature.”
Good morning Goodreaders! Please be forewarned: If you aren’t familiar with me and are here because this (1) randomly showed up on your feed due to a mutual acquaintance we share or (2) because you are expecting a super smart opinion piece on a modern classic, I have one thing to say to you . . . . .



In case the .gif didn’t clue you in, I’m not going to offer any sort of literary insight in this space. What I am going to do is what I always do, which is - not talk about the book for a bit.

Still here? Probably not. For the three of you who are, you’re probably actual friends of mine and are asking “how the hell did this get on her TBR?” or “she does know this isn’t a porno or a young adult selection, right?” Amazingly, the answer is YES I do know things – even that this won the Booker Prize . . . . . .



But if I’m going to be 100% honest I have to admit I read this for one reason and one reason alone . . . . .



If you know me, you’ll know I’m a real whore when it comes to getting free swag from the library. The artist formerly known as the Adult WINTER Reading Challenge has now become the Adult SUMMER Reading Challenge and I will do whatever it takes in order to win this season’s prize pint glass that I can drink mass quantities of beer from . . . . .



Allow me a moment to apologize to my pal Kristin. You see, Kristin is one of only a few people (I’m talking you can count them on one hand and still have fingers left over) who has been able to break the fourth wall and become my friend on Facebook as well as Goodreads (meaning she’s the one who can confirm I’m really as awful everywhere as I am here and am not Catfishing you) so she’s being inundated with updates regarding my joy. I’m picturing her saying something along these lines once she sees this post . . . . .



I’m truly sorry Kristin. I wish Erica weren’t such a horrible librarian and would take care of your request for free shit.

Anyway, back on “topic” (HA!). As you can see above, the theme this year is to “Push Your Shelf” which kind of blows because I’m more than content here in my bubble. Buuuuuuuuuut (surprising as it may be), I do like the follow the rules of the challenge. The generic terms to win the glass are “read 5 books between X and Y date,” which we all know is easy peezy lemon squeezy for yours truly. The “pushing your shelf” means you’re supposed to read something that takes you out of your comfort zone – which I didn’t think was possible since, you know, I live with Mitchell. Turns out “comfort zone” for this one equated to smarty farty and had me looking a lil’ summin’ like this for quite a while . . . .



As the author says in the Q&A section, The God Of Small Things “begins at the end and ends in the middle.” Readers are aware early on that a child has died, that a twin was sent away to live with his father and returned 23 years later, that his sister has returned to India from America in order to reunite and that a forbidden romance of some sort took place. It takes nearly the remainder of the book to circle back around in order to fill in the details regarding these events. AND IT WAS SERIOUSLY PURPLE IN PROSE. That was nearly a dealbreaker for me. The characters, setting, etc. had me pretty enraptured, but I am just not a superfan of “beautiful” writing. Lucky for me, there were moments like these that a simpleton such as myself could enjoy . . . .

“He might change,” Ammu says.

“How d’you mean? Change into what?” Sophie Mol asked.

“Into a Male Chauvinist Pig,” Rahel said.

“Very unlikely,” Estha said.


^^^^Estha being a young boy at the time and the potential “male chauvinist pig” in question.

While this selection was a bit of a slog for me, the “round about” delivery ended up being pretty brilliant and I am very glad it was one of the recommended reads for this challenge as I would have never read it if that hadn’t happened. I also discovered the author was charged with a criminal offense of “corrupting public morality” and tied up in court proceedings for years which means I probably need to put better locks on the doors so Mitchell can’t track her down. As for the moment in the book that caused the charge??????



Ha! You know I don’t have that reaction to most anything. Actually I thought the scene in question cheapened what otherwise was a real one-of-a-kind type of read.

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