The God of Small Things is set across two time periods. Firstly the late 1980s, when Rahel returns home from the States to India in order to reunite with Estha her twin brother whom she hasn't seen for 23 years after they were separated following a tragic family event- the aftermath of the event and their separation has resulted in the adult Estha not speaking for many years and the adult Rahel being unable to relate well to others resulting in her divorce. The other time period is the 1960s and the story of the events that ended with the separation of Rahel and Estha. The 1960s time period is told out of order so from early on it is revealed that the twins' English cousin, Sophie, died somewhat suspiciously when she was visiting them (Sophie was 11 and the twins were 8) and that the twins' mother felt guilty for this because of a controversial love affair she was having. How the child died, who was involved and who the twins' mother was sleeping with are gradually revealed as the novel plays out, as are the histories of the twins' grandmother, their uncle, their mother and their great aunt, and the politics of communism and caste in that region of India. The focus of the novel ultimately is the idea of love- the twins' fear that their family will love their white cousin more than them, their fear that their mother will stop loving them, their great aunt enduring unfulfilled love for a Catholic priest, the fact that both their mother and uncle married outsiders and ended up divorced, the rules of who can be loved and how, and the injustice that these rules can at times.
Like many "worthy" novels and, in my experience, many Indian novels, The God of Small Things moves very slowly and is often more description than narrative. Thankfully unlike the similarly slow and similarly Booker winning Indian novel, The Inheritance of Loss, I did not find the slowness quite as painful....in fact I didn't find it painful at all. I was also delighted that this novel was not as depressing as the Booker Prize winning label might make it appear. It is more of mood piece and less of a sequence of increasingly suicide inducing plot points. The slowness of events is compensated by the mild feeling of suspense about the events of the 1960s which is upheld for much of the novel- I guessed who the mother was sleeping with about halfway through and guessed some of the other events that would unfold but was still in two minds about the means of Sophie's death until it was actually revealed. The novel initially starts by alternating chapters between the 1980s with flashbacks and the 1960s without but then gradually is swamped by the events of the 1960s and the 1980s fades into the background. The twins as children (ultimately the side of the twins you see decidedly more of) are delightfully insecure characters and their family is wonderfully colourful even if some members of it are largely unlikable. The idea of caste and the separation of this family as Syrian Christian is fascinating to me as someone who hasn't read much that focused on these ideas in the past. The description that helps cause the slowness is quite vivid and you almost feel as if you are walking the streets and experiencing the events of the twins and their family. All in all a powerful novel but the pace might be a stumbling block for some.
From one woman author to another....possibly to finish off the Novel Challenge, I'm now reading Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall- back to my comfort zone of 19th century female authors. If I do finish it with time to spare, I'll be reading Persuasion to finish.
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