The God of Small Things
The God of Small ThingsLush, poetic and terrifying, Arundhati Roy’s impressive first novel evokes the mystery and contradictions of the Indian sub-continent through the heart-rending story of “two-egg twins,” Rahel and Estha.
When Rahel returns to the family home in Ayemenem as a grown woman, she remembers Sophie Mol’s funeral and the day years ago that changed everything. Starting at the end, the tale is told, the drama unfolding in pieces, turning in on itself, unraveling, zigzagging skillfully between past and present, in language filled with word play and exquisite metaphors.
Fleeing a disastrous love marriage, the twins’ mother, Ammu, brought them to live with her high caste Anglophile family in Kerala, a state in southern India rife, in 1969, with conflict between the old social...
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