Volume 44, Number 13 · August 14, 1997
Out of the Ruins
By Rosemary Dinnage
The God of Small Things
by Arundhati Roy
Random House, 321 pp., $23.00
The central character of The God of Small Things (she is just called 'Ammu'—Mother—because the story is even more about her twin children) is a South Indian woman who has few advantages in her background but who refuses to be docile: 'Must we behave like some damn godforsaken tribe that's just been discovered?' she snaps when her English sister-in-law enthuses about quaint, exotic Kerala. And it is hard for Western readers not to respond as much to the rich and (to us) exotic setting of Arun-dhati Roy's powerful first novel as to its tragic story. Banana flowers, vine-covered trees, jackfruit, wild pepper; cormorants, purple herons, giant spiders, a drenched mongoose; a blind old lady in a starched sari, ruby rings, and 1950s sunglasses with rhinestones at the corners; a hut smelling of woodsmoke and fish curry, on the wall a picture of Jesus with lipstick and a bleeding heart; bedizened Kathakali dancers playing out the death of Dushasana till dawn by the light of an oil lamp. We have learned something about India from the other brilliant Indian novelists now writing, but more about the North than about tropical, Marxist Kerala, some twelve hundred miles south of Delhi.
Review, 2250 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |