The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

Thanks to two back to back weeks of working 60 hours, it took me a really long time to read this one. In my defense, the book is also very dense and the type is fairly small. 

General impressions: It was very good. Not great, but very good. Sometimes the writing flowed beautifully, seemed to match the pace and tone of the action perfectly, and made me smile. Other times it felt like watching someone tread water in a lap pool.  Roy mixes in Malayalam (native language) words which at times was a bit confusing and seemed to require too much processing. I had to reread sentences and once the entire paragraph because I kept getting stuck on "translating" something. And finally, I thought there were too many penises mentioned in completely unnecessary ways, leaving me slightly grossed out and concerned about the apparent shortage of pants in India. (Joking, joking...There's a definite erotic undertone though.)

The story is narrated in the third person, but mainly centered on dizygotic (fraternal) twins, Rahel and Estha who things just sort of seem to happen to. There's a chapter where Rahel is watching her family on the front porch, and she says it's like watching a scene in a play. To me, the whole book seemed like that. They don't actually do anything, things just sort of occur. People say and do things, and the twins (who actually view themselves as one person) just soak everything up, watching interactions, and being shaped based on the family members around them.

The book begins with the funeral of their cousin, Sophie, who visits from England "Hatted, bell-bottomed, and Loved from the Beginning"; and then in a circuitous and somewhat mysterious series of flashbacks and forwards, tells the tragic story of a family, deeply unfortunate, and their love, and ultimate betrayal, of one another leading up the night of Sophie's death. 

I thought the last chapter was especially well written and did make me cry. Though in fairness, other things that make me cry are:

a) The Liberty Mutual commercial where the people "pay it forward" and do nice things for each other because they witnessed another good deed

b) The song "The Luckiest" by Ben Folds

c) Onions

I highly recommend it, but just know that wading through her prose is slow going, and some of the subject matter such as pedophilia, violence, and incest might be upsetting. This would be a great read for a serious book club (unlike mine which is actually a wine and 'who can make the best finger food competition' club masquerading as a group of women with an interest in literature), as I think I could have benefited from some varying view points and more discussion/analysis.

Coming later this week: Packing the Court by James MacGregor Burns. And, to balance out all this learning I'm doing, I think it's about time for some trashy romance :-) Plus I still have to finish Kafka on the Shore... Stay tuned!