The God of Small Things
A Novel
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- ¥1,600
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- ¥1,600
Publisher Description
BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An affluent Indian family is forever changed by one fateful day in 1969, from the author of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
“[The God of Small Things] offers such magic, mystery, and sadness that, literally, this reader turned the last page and decided to reread it. Immediately. It’s that haunting.”—USA Today
Compared favorably to the works of Faulkner and Dickens, Arundhati Roy’s modern classic is equal parts powerful family saga, forbidden love story, and piercing political drama. The seven-year-old twins Estha and Rahel see their world shaken irrevocably by the arrival of their beautiful young cousin, Sophie. It is an event that will lead to an illicit liaison and tragedies accidental and intentional, exposing “big things [that] lurk unsaid” in a country drifting dangerously toward unrest.
Lush, lyrical, and unnerving, The God of Small Things is an award-winning landmark that started for its author an esteemed career of fiction and political commentary that continues unabated.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Arundhati Roy’s Booker Prize–winning debut is both a historical pageturner and a thoughtful critique of India’s caste system. Fraternal twins Rahel and Esthappen were separated at age seven after the mysterious death of their cousin Sophie. As the siblings’ beloved uncle leads a challenge against the conservative status quo of India’s caste system during a period of political unrest, Roy brings us along on the twins’ journey, showing us how they confront a complex world while struggling to keep their innocence intact. Full of vivid imagery, Roy’s writing is gorgeous and lyrical. We were transfixed by Rahel and Esthappen’s story, especially as it brings in ever-more fascinating characters and explores resonant themes of class struggle and forbidden love. A captivating, wide-screen drama that’s full of eye-opening political and social commentary, The God of Small Things will sweep you away.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With sensuous prose, a dreamlike style infused with breathtakingly beautiful images and keen insight into human nature, Roy's debut novel charts fresh territory in the genre of magical, prismatic literature. Set in Kerala, India, during the late 1960s when Communism rattled the age-old caste system, the story begins with the funeral of young Sophie Mol, the cousin of the novel's protagonists, Rahel and her fraternal twin brother, Estha. In a circuitous and suspenseful narrative, Roy reveals the family tensions that led to the twins' behavior on the fateful night that Sophie drowned. Beneath the drama of a family tragedy lies a background of local politics, social taboos and the tide of history--all of which come together in a slip of fate, after which a family is irreparably shattered. Roy captures the children's candid observations but clouded understanding of adults' complex emotional lives. Rahel notices that "at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. The Big Things lurk unsaid inside." Plangent with a sad wisdom, the children's view is never oversimplified, and the adult characters reveal their frailties--and in one case, a repulsively evil power--in subtle and complex ways. While Roy's powers of description are formidable, she sometimes succumbs to overwriting, forcing every minute detail to symbolize something bigger, and the pace of the story slows. But these lapses are few, and her powers coalesce magnificently in the book's second half. Roy's clarity of vision is remarkable, her voice original, her story beautifully constructed and masterfully told. First serial to Granta; foreign rights sold in France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Holland, India, Greece, Canada and the U.K.