The God of Small Things

Magnifique livre, très émouvant et incroyablement bien écrit. Ce premier livre de l'auteur, si je me rappelle bien mes lectures à son sujet, fit sensation dans le monde de la littérature anglaise. Il est de fait étudié au Bac français (option littérature anglaise) 2024-2025. Le style est de réalisme magique, vu depuis les yeux de deux enfants, faux-jumeaux, qui ont développés une vision très particulière du monde, certainement par protection. Bien qu'il traite de sujets parfois sur, ce style justement permet d'éviter de se retrouver le cœur trop broyé para leurs tribulations.

Tätä kirjaa oli aika uuvuttava lukea. Ensimmäiset kaksi ja puoli sataa sivua tuntuivat aika sekavilta ja tapahtumat irrallisilta, kerrontatyyli oli minusta ärsyttävä, ja vasta viimeisen sadan sivun aikana koko tarinaan tuli jotain tolkkua. Mutta kyllä sitten, kun loppuun asti sai punnerrettua, tästä muodostui melko voimakas kertomus eteläintialaisen yhteiskunnan jännitteistä.

Amazing.

Short but intense book, with lots to say about caste, class and family.
It was a powerful read but I honestly am not sure if I can say I liked it. It is disturbing and confronting. It is also extremely well structured, I will probably need to sit with it for a while.

Kerala and nearly all of the characters expand into three dimensions in a story that weaves between past and present and addresses class and patriarchal structures, colonialism, family dysfunction. It's cluttered however with poetic turns of phrase that founder and repeat and grow overshadowly wearisome.

Abandoned, at 24%. This is not good for my 2021 reading challenge: I'm already two books behind. If I were younger I might slog through... but now, with fewer moments left in my life, I choose to enjoy those moments more — and I am not enjoying this book. At all. Disjointed the timeline is, confusingly so. The characters (so far) only superficially drawn: no depth nor feeling, except for (the author's) heavyhanded scorn toward the Bitter Spinster and the Drunken Ex-Husband. The prose, awkwardly florid at times. (Lovely at times, too, but not enough of a balance for me).

Beautifully written, painting a vivid picture of a place and time, and dealing with a culture and subjects I knew little about. I struggled with the non-linear timeline though. Perhaps I’d got used to it by the time I reached the conclusion, but the latter half of the book felt stronger.

A book I’m glad to have read, which will stay with me for some time.

The ending is awful!

Damn, what a book

I cannot say I liked this book. It's great, but it's also awful, and I feel like it will take a while to wash it off of me. It describes ugly things as if they were beautiful and beautiful things as if they were ugly.

Also, I think it hit closer to home than I would have liked and much closer than it should have.

I cannot possibly rate this book.

A stunning tale, full of light and darkness, poetry and playfulness, big and small things. Arundhati Roy has a way with words that is unique, and speaks both to the hearts and minds of her readers.

Some great writing, most particularly in the tension of some passages and in the use of repeated phrases to highlight affect, but the pessimism can be grating. The narrative of loss, social difference, and the struggles of one family in the archaic Indian caste system is set up to be a story for all class struggle, but is overly sentimental throughout.

This book broke my heart.

She just writes gorgeous prose.