I would have helped you on this, but unfortunately I am not reading this book, and dont know what about communism she is talking. I have this feeling that she is abstract in her writing. I somehow cant make myself want to read this book.Originally Posted by Virgil
3 more days and I can start reading - I'm swamped at the minute, and can't really do anything but homework and the occasional post here.
There are generally three reasons why writers do this. One is suspense, and this is from a writer's craft point of view. By holding off information while bring the narrative to beyond the time of climax, creates a certain tension. You grasp fragments of the ramifications of the events without knowing the total picture. Second, and this is from an aesthetic point of view, time itself becomes part of the theme. By the manipulation of time one can understand how the events of the novel are rooted in a time period. The novel is fluctuating back and forth between different moments in history. Three, and this is also aesthetic I guess, it recreates a temporal experience. When we thinnk back on our lives, moments in time merge, overlap, and intersect. Our lives may progress in linear time, but our experience of our lives does not.
I think Roy is considering all three reasons here.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
I agree that the similies border on the overkill sometimes. But taken as a whole, I still think that Roy did an excellent job. In a way, her lucullan comparisons make me think of India. I have never been there but reading The God of Small Things reinforces my idea that it is a place that's extraordinarily rich in history, culture and local color; teeming with people and noise and temples richly decorated with gods sporting outlandish headdresses and possessing an extravagant number of limbs.
"He lives most gaily who knows best how to deceive himself. Ha-ha!"
- CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
Past halfway, it's only now that I'm starting to warm to this novel. I would apply Virgil's remarks to the entire first half.
For me, Arundhati Roy's heavy imagery has been fading into oblivion for a reader with insufficient context to assimilate. As in 'The Tin Drum', we have these interminable descriptive passages that relate to nothing. Or must one read such books twice?
Notwithstanding, I am now beginning to page back through the book to make sense of it all (Velutha, for instance), as I did three-quarter-way through The Tin Drum. As luck would have it, my library copy must be returned today!
On the positive side, I like Rahel, find Estha fascinating, and wonder about Sophie Mol, Velutha, Indian communism and the ‘Terror’.
Well, I finished the novel and it was a big disappointment. The first half of this novel was excellent. But soehow it veered off. Did I miss something? The trajectory of the first half of the novel was the relationship of Rahel and Estha, and the schism that was to happen to the twins. This cause of the schism was always held back and allowed the reader to wonder. Ok, but that is a dangerous strategy. If the cause is integrated with the plot, then it will work. But if the cause is added to the plot rather than integrated, then it’s a cheap trick. That’s what I feel has happened.
The cause of the schism turns out to be a taboo relationship between their mother and Velutha, a lighter skinned woman and a dark man of a lower caste. First, how original is that? A plot where white woman (brown in this case) has a relationship with a black man that leads to tragic consequences.. How many times have we seen that? Sure this is set in a specific Indian context of caste, but I’ve seen this plot many times in movies, TV no less. Hey this goes back to Othello.
Second, where was this ever developed in the first half? It was held back as a cheap trick. Which then is the main plot, the psychological development of Rahel and Estha’s being or the elicit relationship between Anmmu and Velutha? And which is the subplot? I can’t tell. When Shakespeare in King Lear has two plots running parallel (Lear’s and Gloucester’s) they intertwine and one is subordinated to the other. In the novel they are almost two separate stories. What does the incident of Estha and the Orange-Lemon drink man have to do with anything? That becomes just sensationalism in respect to the rest of the plot.
Third, the second half of the novel seems like it was largely telling rather than dramatizing. How many times are to have told to us that Velutha was “hounded by history”? This is telling. When the Inspector Mathew taps Ammu’s breasts, Roy writes: “It was a premeditated gesture, calculated to humiliate and terrorize her. An attempt to instill order in a world gone wrong.” “Instill order in a world gone wrong” is again telling the reader what to think. This is I’m afraid ideologically driven. She is telling you how to interpret the events because at the heart of this is a polemic.
Fourth, the style of characterization all of sudden changes in the second half. All of a sudden characters are not three dimensional; they become two dimensional. Police are inhuman brutes, Baby Kochamma is evil and a religious hypocrit, and the communists are corrupt. Check this passage:
(p. 248)Inspector Thomas Mathew was a prudent man. He took one precaution. He sent a jeep to fetch Comrade K.N.M Pillai to the police station. It was crucial for him to know whether the Paravan had any political support or whether he was operating alone. Though he himself was a Congress man, he did not intend to risk any run-ins with the Marxist government. When Comrade Pillai arrived, he was ushered into the seat that Baby Kochamma had only recently vacated. Inspector Thomas Mathew showed him Baby Kochamma’s First Information Report. The two men had a conversation. Brief, cryptic, to the point. As though they had exchanged numbers and not words. No explanations seemed necessary. They were not friends, Comrade Pillai and Inspector Thomas Mathew, and they didn’t trust each other. But they understood each other perfectly. They were both men whom childhood had abandoned without a trace. Men without curiosity. Without doubt. Both in their own way truly, terrifyingly adult. They looked out at the world and never wondered how it worked, because they knew. They worked it. They were mechanics who serviced different parts of the same machine.
Now first I don’t know how anyone can be both prudent and not have curiosity and not know how the world works. Second, they had a conversation that was “cryptic” and “to the point”? Huh? Cryptic and to the point are opposites. And why doesn’t she dramatis this, this being a crux of the plot? She summarizes rather than showing us because she has created cartoon characters and the more she dramatizes cartoons the worse the writing gets. Third, “terrifyingly adult”? Well that’s a rather childish statement on her part. They’re adults and to act otherwise is contrary to their nature. She could have said they lacked understanding or imagination, but to characterize as "terrorfying adults" just reflects a simple notion of humanity. Fourth, this reflects the ideological polemic of the novel, the cartoonish nature of the people she disagrees with (as if they didn’t have complex reasons for their actions) and the running of a “machine”. Isn’t that from a Pink Floyd song? The government is a “machine” that unimaginative adult, people run at the expense of the inspired powerless. How creative.
Fifth I’m at a loss at how the themes interact. If Roy is criticizing the caste system, why is the central family of the novel Christian? Do we ever understand why Ammu falls in love with Velutha? If this is such a taboo shouldn’t the narrative spend a great deal of time and space showing us why they love each other? Even in Othello, Shakespeare has a large passage of how and why Desdemona falls for Othello. And what does the fact that Rahel and Estha are twins and their psychic connection have to do with climatic events? And what about the added layer of Sophie Mol being an English girl? Now Roy is brining in another historical context (British imperialism of India) when she’s criticizing the caste system. Perhaps someone can explain the relationship between all these themes, but frankly they appear to me as a hodge-podge.
Sixth, wht in heaven’s name does “The God of Small Things” have to do with anything in the novel? What is that all about? Here’s that passage that Scher quoted:
(p. 20)That something happened when personal turmoil dropped by at the wayside shrine of the vast, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible, public turmoil of a nation. That Big God howled like a hot wind, and demanded obeisance. Then Small God (cosy and contained, private and limited) came away cauterized, laughing numbly at his own temerity. Inured by the confirmation of his own inconsequence, he became resilient and truly indifferent. Nothing mattered much. Nothing much mattered.
I have no idea what she’s talking about given the context of the novel. What small things? These are big things that happened. Her high language rings hollow.
Seventh, the ending, after the climax, is cheap and tawdry. We see Ammu listening to a song that just coincidently captures her motivations. It's the Rolling Stones’ song, “Ruby Tuesday.”
(p. 314)The words of the song exploded in her head.
There’s no time to lose
I heard her say
Cash your dreams before
They slip away
Dying all the time
Lose your dreams and you
Will lose your mind.
Ammu drew her knees up and hugged them. She couldn’t believe it. The cheap coincidence of those words.
Yes, it’s very cheap, she said it herself, but even cheaper is the gratuitous sex that ends the novel. The incest between the twins is completely uncalled for, and the description of the sex between Ammu and Velutha borders on pornography. Did she have to be so explicit? No, it was gratuitous, like a movie scene. In fact the whole last chapter of that Ammu and Velutha scene rings like a flashback scene from a movie where there is Celtic music over a misty set of action of events that happened in a innocent pre-climatic time. The whole ending struck me as cheap.
At mid point in this novel I was ready to give this the highest rating. But slowly it got worse and worse and degenerated into a ideological polemic. I’m not from India, so I won’t comment on the ideology, but one can write an essay or if this is truly a problem there should hundreds of true life stories that would carry more impact. But certainly someone who disagrees with her ideology can write something that would rebut her points. For me, ideological polemics don’t make art. There were fine moments of writing in the novel. She does capture the family extremely well and at times she soars to great prose, even poetic prose. But then there are the silly similes too. For all that I wound up with a mid point rating. It’s ok.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
It was the aspect of suspense that especially worked for me. The swinging back & forth of the timetables created a sort of jigsaw puzzle in my mind and I was very eager to read on and watch the separate pieces fall into their rightful places and form a unified picture.
I'm still wondering what Pappachi's moth is symbolic of vis-a-vis Rahel's (and perhaps Estha's also) sentiments and experiences.
"He lives most gaily who knows best how to deceive himself. Ha-ha!"
- CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
There are so many symbols and metaphors that they trip over each other. Moth, God of Small Things, others I can't recall. It feels like Roy's trying so hard to be literary. Too hard. It got annoying after a while.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
Just finished, though unsure how to vote. The symbols and metaphors endlessly trip over each other.
The god of small things relates to conscience and personal responsibility: the inner god of integrity. More literally, Velutha is the god giving 'a catapult, an inflatable goose, a Qantas koala with loosened button eyes': the god of the small children.
Isn't betrayal the cause of the schism? Betrayal of the Paravan, of friendship, of conscience, of one's very humanity, of the god of small things. The maternal betrayal inherent in "That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.”
The same betrayal or cowardice is at work here: 'she’d [Ammu] love him less as well'. Sensitive Estha's lack of moral courage begins to silence him forever.
The police and the communists, not unreasonably, believe Velutha (god of small things giving little presents to twins) to be a rogue rapist. Culturally susceptible, they are deceived by the nasty and unambiguously neurotic Baby Kochamma, as are Chacko, Estha and Rachel later.
I think the novel is less about politics, the caste system or sex-staved Ammu's love affair than about the instability inherent in all human relationships: ‘they begin to love you less’.
Incest? I, like Baby Kochamma, understand this heroic encounter as a display of illicit empathy in a world frozen by alienation, well illustrated by Catholic Kochamma and her estranged priest, a Hindu convert!
Even cheaper, crackling through Ammu's tangerine transistor. So is the fool-hardy sex act with the under-age(?) 15-year-old outcast. How likeable is Ammu? How likeable are adults?
Past halfway, I could finally read thirty pages at a sitting, slowly unscrambling the metaphors, time-lines and plot.
The moth represents for Rachal the bitterness of hopes unfulfilled: 'A cold moth lifted a cold leg'. Pappachi's discovery of a new species of moth was dismissed and later credited to others.
Last edited by Gladys; 11-28-2008 at 03:30 AM.
Thanks for all your cmments Gladys. You read this very carefully.Let me see if I can respond to one or two.
"The god of small things relates to conscience and personal responsibility," well that is interesting. I guess that could be, but what does Velutha "being a god of small children" have to do with that?
No I would say the taboo is the heart of the events and the paravan's betrayal a mechanism of the plot.Isn't betrayal the cause of the schism? Betrayal of the Paravan, of friendship, of conscience, of one's very humanity, of the god of small things. The maternal betrayal inherent in "That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.”
Oh perhaps it fits thematically in some way, I don't doubt that, but the event is (a) so dramatic that one would certainly think it central to the events and (b) she spends so much narrative time on it that it seems to be the thrust of the novel itself. The shift from the children's story to that of Ammu and Velutha's story is what is disorienting and I think makes the novel flawed.The same betrayal or cowardice is at work here: 'she’d [Ammu] love him less as well'. Sensitive Estha's lack of moral courage begins to silence him forever.
I'm sorry I just disagree. When I say politics i don't mean political parties per se. I mean she's got a social activist's agenda.I think the novel is less about politics, the caste system or sex-staved Ammu's love affair than about the instability inherent in all human relationships: ‘they begin to love you less’.
Yes, toward the second to last chapter the brother and sister commit incest. I found that completely gratuitous.Incest? I, like Baby Kochamma, understand this heroic encounter as a display of illicit empathy in a world frozen by alienation, well illustrated by Catholic Kochamma and her estranged priest, a Hindu convert!
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
The Orange-Lemon Drink Man incident was what triggered Estha's decision to stow away (with Rahel and Sophie) in that little boat. After the molestation Estha became afraid that his mother would be mad at him if she found out. And Ammu herself, at that time when she was locked up in her room, did lash out to her kids, albeit recklessly in a fit of anger and frustration: "If it wasn't for you ... I would have been free! I should have dumped you in an orphanage the day you were born! You are millstones around my neck! ... Why can't you just go away and leave me alone?" (page 253).
Estha had told the Orange-lemon drink man where he lived, thus he was afraid that the latter could come for him any day and do him harm again. So he felt he had to get away. Thanks to what the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man did to Estha, their Home away from Home was already equipped. (page 291).
Last edited by bouquin; 11-28-2008 at 11:40 AM.
"He lives most gaily who knows best how to deceive himself. Ha-ha!"
- CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
Yeah, that's pretty tenuous, don't you think? She could have been angry at Estha for any old thing and they would have still run away. But this was a pretty dramatic in your face event that really seems Roy trivializes now in retrospect. In fact one can come to a conclusion the novel is about perverse sexual encoounters, where the Velutha/Ammu relationship can be seen as another perversion. But I don't think that's what Roy is trying to say. And then there is the incest. What is Roy trying to say? You got me.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
Since dreadful and long-standing insecurities abound in mother and son, both seek refugee in the god of small things, Velutha. 'Prepare to prepare to be prepared.' Later, locked in her bedroom, Ammu's god is lost to her, and hope with it. Terrible. She lashes out. Later still, the children witness god's crucifixion and death, and Estha echoes Peter's denial to Inspector Thomas Mathew :
Luke 22:57___And he denied him, saying, Woman, I know him not.
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.
I was inclined to agree, Virgil, with many of your criticisms but, writing for this thread, I am warming to the novel.
Mark 10:14___But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.
The children's story is in many ways a loss of innocence and a fall from grace but above all, a denial of their god. Ammu is passionate for the same god. Both mother and children aspire to what is pure and good. But life disappoints: perhaps the major theme of the novel.
As Estha stirred the thick jam he thought Two Thoughts, and the Two Thoughts he thought were these: (a)Anything can happen to Anyone. and (b)It’s best to be prepared.
I found this scene very moving. Can you show that the 'incest' is more than a metaphor for two souls communicating (one silently) in contravention of a taboo, which relates to the unspeakable (the sacred) rather than the untouchable?
I did see the Christian parallels, though I must say you really saw more. But, let me ask, do you think Roy is being ironic (meaning cynical) with the Christian allusions or is there a spiritual side to this novel? Frankly I think she was being cynical.
That was very good writing. There are solid passages in the novel.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.
I'm suspecting that you're Roy in incognito.I was inclined to agree, Virgil, with many of your criticisms but, writing for this thread, I am warming to the novel.
Yes, I do think there is a solid novel in this material. I just can't help but feel the structure is all screwed up and that Roy. I frankly think it's a mess as one tries to piece together cohenerent themes. They seem to trip over each other like her metaphors. Plus I can't help but be irritated by her activist agenda. She dislikes the caste system, and while it's not for me to have an opinion on it, she can at least make the opposing view less than human. Those that disagree with her are cartoonish characters. They have no depth. As if thousands of years of history is black and white moral/immoral.Mark 10:14___But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.
The children's story is in many ways a loss of innocence and a fall from grace but above all, a denial of their god. Ammu is passionate for the same god. Both mother and children aspire to what is pure and good. But life disappoints: perhaps the major theme of the novel.
I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. I took the incest as a by product of their mother's failed taboo relationship. Here's the little passage that describes it:Can you show that the 'incest' is more than a metaphor for two souls communicating (one silently) in contravention of a taboo, which relates to the unspeakable (the sacred) rather than the untouchable?
This suggests a social defiance, not a sacred/spiritual experience. They are replicating their mother's central core of experiencing taboo. Almost as if there is a psychic connection with their mother, though perhaps I'm stretching a bit with that last thought. It's almost as if the disappointment and saddness that has run through their lives for the 23 years after the climatic event can only be relieved with this act. Frankly that's gratuitous to me. Come on, lots of events shape children, but to think they will have incest because of it, well that's just melodramatic.Only that once again they broke the Love Laws. They lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
I don't know: 'Anything can happen to Anyone'.
Her spokesman for the caste system, Vellya Paapen, is particularly unpalatable. Victimising people by social group or cultural heritage seems to parallel slavery in the West.
I confess my last two posts on incest have been cryptic; Roy's imagery is so extreme. No incest occurs between the twins (and even if it does, the incest is sacred like Ammu's affair)
Incest is metaphor for two damaged souls communicating, Estha silently and Rachel, alone in a bedroom: deep heartfelt solidarity between two innocents who have lost their way in a hostile world. Such honest communication between of souls is cultural heresy, almost a cultural 'incest', according to the likes of Baby Kochamma; their solidarity as much a taboo as inter-caste sexual relations.
The union of the beneficent god, Velutha, with the children and their mother breaks both taboos: the implicit and the (sexually) explicit. The gracious god has spiritual intercourse with the twins and their mother, and sexual intercourse with Ammu. God with man; untouchable with touchable.
Genesis 1:31___And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.
It’s so very sad:
Only that once again they broke the Love Laws. They lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much.
Tears to my eyes.
Your remarks, in bold, hit the nail on the head. The 'sacred/spiritual experience' shared by the twins amounts to social defiance and a sharing in their mother's experience of taboo.
Last edited by Gladys; 11-29-2008 at 01:38 AM. Reason: grammar
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