I just kept myself occupied with Ugly Love by American novelist Colleen Hoover and “Unforgiven” by British novelist Elizabeth Finn at irregular intervals while Arundathi Roy’s 1997 the Booker Prize winning “The God of Small Things” being my frequent captivator that is invested with the finest of the flashback narrative techniques.
My subjective being may even categorically say that more than Hoover and Finn, Roy has got the absolute command of the flashback narrative techniques in her celebrated debut The God of Small Things. Published in 1997, The God of Small Things by Arundathi Roy bears testimony to the terrific and first-rate use of the most significant and sought-after literary devices that give life to an acclaimed masterpiece in the calibre of The God of Small Things.
The story is predominantly set in a town called, Ayemenem in Kerala in India. Roy’s setting as well as that of the plot are a few of the trademarks noticed within the story. Rahel, Estha and Ammu are Roy’s protagonists whilst Navomi Ipe Kochamma becomes her antagonist.Roy seems to have been impressed by the method of semi-autobiographical style in introducing her book to the reading public which has significantly abdicated the traits dominant in the bourgeois and pooterish plots as well as that of the most prevalent light prose that had been quintessential and archetypal among the majority of the best-sellers.
The composition is enriched with a rhapsodic and lilting language that deals with the themes which are rather predominant and ubiquitous in the Indian sub-continent; Roy commands her characters in a narrative that ramble, dawdle and traipse through time. Roy’s knack in presenting an insight in the hotly debated phenomena in the cohorts of archaic and hoary concepts of casteism, misogyny, chauvinism, patriarchy and multiple number of social limitations and boundaries at times stand as an eye opener with regard to the viciousness and ferocity in the Indian society during the post-colonial period.
Roy’s ability of getting herself indulged with effusive and ritzy imaginations made edible by her exasperating and infuriating style of storytelling lures and entices herreader tothe eerie and spooky landscape of Ayemenm, a tiny village in Kerala’s Kottayam District.
Endemic and ingrained sexism and bigotry that are unheeded to the people’s dismay in the heart of Kerala is brought into the limelight by the audacious and pugnacious characters of the story.
A concerned reader would dare say that Roy has run along a strenuous and onerous road for a dare that unerringly and plainly takes the reader’s breath away alongwith the writer’s distinctively and splendidly poetic and metrical description added in every page. Every word in every sentence in its every inch could effortlessly be devoured and imbibed.
A reader may recurrently keep coming back to the story and Roy is well comprehended of the required strategies that have got the potential of maintaining the reader’s inquisitiveness and enthusiasm which is all times being its superlative.
A certain critic shared that Roy’s style of prose writing is invariably beguiling and bewitching which in a flash or in a jiffy robs the attention of the reader; reader’s addiction to the story is a citadel.
Each page is a presentation of diverse number of themes and subsets that is the stimuli of the reader whose inquisitiveness does not see boundaries.Roy has decorated a somber and melancholic story with a set of carefully chosen ravishing and enticing words that paint a picture of the cost of blindly imposed societal rules and the heavy price, the discriminated and marginalised society’s cross section is forced to pay for.
An ardent fan of Roy, shared with me that if he would ever get an opportunity of meeting with Roy, he would give her an affectionate hug in acknowledging her charming charisma that is reflected in her words.
In a broader remark, he noted that his typical nature of sloth and indolence for words is coaxed and cajoled into reading with Roy’s The God of Small Things, beyond all aspects of modern literature.Roy’s profound and intense intuition has given birth to her debut novel of
“The God of Small Things” that made her an exceptional writer.The engrossing plot, touching tale, edible and durable sketches, applied with the characters, reviving and bracing language that is rich with evocative and glowing imagery of The God of Small Things arguably find its due place in any library.
