chicks review:
The God of Small Things

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The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy PB list price $14.00 HarperCollins (May 1998) ISBN: 0060977493 321 pages Other editions: HB average review: Reviews: This gets: a from eryka: I so wanted to like this book. I so wanted to support a new writer from a more or less unrepresented subcontinent on the world literary scene, and she's a woman too! But alas, though she occasionally had some gorgeous turns of phrase, the structure of the novel was overwhelmingly irritating, and I couldn't have cared less about the main characters. From the back cover: Southern India 1969. Here, armed only with the invincible innocence of children, Rahel and Esthappen fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family: their lonely, lovely mother, who loves by night the same man her children adore by day...their blind grandmother, who plays Handel on her violin...their beloved uncle, A Rhodes Scholar pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher...their enemy, an ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt...and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth. But when their English cousin and her mother arrive for a Christmas visit, the twins learn that things can change in an instant, that lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever. The brilliantly plotted story uncoils with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability. Yet nothing prepares you for what lies at the heart of it. eryka.com scale: So good you just can't stand it. Almost that good. Sort of good. Generally a waste of time. Destined for the recycler. If you'd like to review this book, or another, click here Similar books by category: women writers | indian fiction Go home | Go to reviews home © 2002 eryka.com. All rights reserved.