The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
My review
rating: 2 of 5 stars
This book reads more like poetry than fiction. Beautiful, yet very very confusing. I’m about half-way through. And I don’t know if I would have made it this far had I not been trapped in a doctor’s office for hours. Either way, now I’m in it and will prob. finish.
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It took sheer determination to finish this book. Not that it’s not a great book, it’s just not my type. The book is beautifully written, almost carved. And the author’s use of language is ambitious and unique. In turn, I did start to enjoy it at the end.
The book is written in a spiral structure of time, which leads the reader (or at least me) to be very confused for the first half. But the thing that made this book very difficult to read was it’s dark, depressing theme: Society decrees that only certain people can be loved and in certain ways. Now, I’m no Pollyanna, and I can revel in a lot of depressing subject matter, but the idea of extreme limits on love is something that is too hard to handle, even for me, even if it’s true.
But don’t take my word for it, check out Salon.com’s much more complimentary review.
