‘…that I might have missed the pleasure of the first-read of this novel by starting it too early, and I intend to read it again later sometime when I have the guts to inhale every breath that it has to offer.’ I wrote this line towards the very end of my review of this book the first time I read it, about four or five years ago. Even then, I knew I had to reread it again. And today, I have – inhaling, with the guts of reading that I acquired throughout the years, every breath that this novel had to offer. It was riveting. Sensational. Truly significant. Shook me to the core.
And I kept wondering, what made me obsess over Roy’s debut novel so much when I read it the first time? Because I knew I had barely understood the plot, and even less, I had processed the magnificence of structure, writing, and socio-political importance. Was it the pressuring effects of the critics’ praises that led me to champion this novel despite my lack of understanding, or was there something inside the book itself that I felt to great but just couldn’t grasp? This time around, the critics’ comments didn’t influence me at all: for I knew I am rereading it with a matured experience in reading, and that being from the South-Asian region, I have an equal, if not more, foreground to understand and feel this novel as the critics do. So, this time I felt like a critic myself, and as I entered my way into this world a second time, I brushed away the impression-ing comments of critics and sought to make my own.
Let’s lay out the plot here, for two reasons: first, because I faced difficultly comprehending it the first time, and now that I’ve successfully decoded it, I want to write it down so that I don’t forget it again; and second, because I’m not uploading this document online, there shouldn’t be any worries of spoiling it for others.
From the very first chapter, Roy lets us is on all that has or will happen in the novel; she architects this book in such a way that despite knowing its end and marching towards it throughout the book, one never feels complacent with the story. While the Big Things have already been revealed to the readers, the Small Things are masterfully laid out throughout the book, waiting to sting and surprise the readers in every chapter. In the first chapter, we read that Estha and Rahel are the twin children of Ammu, their mother, and that their cousin from England, Sophie Mol, (Chacko and Margaret Kochamma’s daughter) has been killed in an accident involving the twins. We also read in this first chapter about the eventual deaths of Ammu, Baba (Ammu’s husband who leaves his family) and Margaret’s second husband Joe and Sophie’s stepfather, who dies in an accident, the mourning of which brings her and her daughter, Sophie, to Ayemenem, Kerala, where this whole story unfolds. Other characters include Baby Kochamma, Ammu’s aunt and her father, Papachi’s sister. Mammachi is Ammu’s mother, who starts the Paradise Pickles family business, which is later taken over and run by Chacko, Ammu’s brother. On the political end, we have Comrade K. N. Pillai, the head of a Communist party, of which Velutha, an Untouchable, is also a member. Velutha, the God of Small Things; Velutha, who turns this whole story upside down. Velutha the communist, Velutha the lover of Ammu, Velutha the intelligent carpenter, Velutha the loyal worker – but above all, Velutha, the Untouchable.
As for the story itself, it is segmented into a dual narrative: where the first chapter starts with the present day, as the twins, now in their early thirties, have returned to Ayemenem, and through their reminiscence retells the accounts of that god-awful summer. The second chapter, goes back in time, prior to that god-awful summer, and leads up to the events that eventually occur, mainly the arrival of Sophie Mol and her death – with the surprise twist involving Ammu and Velutha. This dual, alternative, narrative continues throughout the novel until the beginning of the end where both these narrative merges together into one. Another admirable example of how well architected this novel is – which of course comes from Roy’s background in BS Architecture.
A beautifully woven masterpiece of architecture, storytelling, magnifying yet subtle prose, and sheer, honest domesticity. Roy admits that parts of this novel is autobiographical, as apparent from the similarities between the story and her life: the Ayemenem village of Kerala where she grew up, the major-part-playing river, Roy and her brother depicted as the twins, and so on.
And this autobiographical element of the novel brings forth what I admired the most in this novel, and do so in every such novel that I read: which is the honesty towards one’s habitat, towards one’s environment; the regionality of the story, a tribute to one’s humble beginnings, a courage to embrace our given identities. Roy doesn’t shy away from the ugliness of the life she grew up in, and through her characters, she not only guides her attention to everything disturbing and neglect-worthy, but rather fixes her gaze on it until the reader has seen and accepted what Roy wanted them to see. Hand smudges on bus’s steel rails, shitting noises, smells, and stains, collected dust on things that have become greasy, hot weather that elevates the dirtiness of the village, dead elephants, deteriorated houses, passed loved ones, and ones unfortunate to be still alive – the sadness, the guilt, the loneliness, the bygones, and the holes that they’ve left behind…
Then, there’s Roy’s poetic instances: the specific shaped holes that each passing character leaves in the universes; Estha’s un-intrusive silence along with his moments of compassion (Estha-the-Compassionate); Little man who rode the car-a-van, dum dum; or the love laws that disturbed our humanity as well as Rahel’s heartbreaking vulnerability about her mother loving her a little less…
Then, there are the images that Smaller stories within this Big story print on your consciousness: the tapping on Ammu’s breasts by police officer’s belter; the soft-drink seller who makes innocent Estha jerk him off at the cinemas; Rahel hiding behind the curtains at airport to attract the attention she deserves, while the famous comedian trying to deserve the attention he has already attracted from the crowd; Estha feeling vomity as he’s being returned, heartbreaking; or Ammu dying alone in a hot, dark room, and then cremated, along with her smile and generous heart, also heartbreaking…
I was on the train to the capital city with my father to start university, when I was reading this novel first. And now, after being graduated, it is the first novel I have reread. And I am happy I did. I understood it fully this time, redeeming my past-self for feeling guilty about reading it too soon. I know the sheer impact of this book I feel now will fade away, but this much I know is true: this book is powerful, it has the power to shake you, to move you to the core – and moved to the core, to the very core, I was while rereading this novel. And I love and admire this book all the more for it.
Its power propels me to gush about how strong its satire and how brutal its honesty is about the hypocrisy of political parties, about the crushing grotesqueness of ‘caste-is-class system’, about the damaging jealousy within family, or about the anti-moral practices of local police. But then I step back or sink deeper and see the whole story again: the sweetness of the twins, the loveliness of Ammu, the tragedy of Velutha - and I am instantly tendered. This a book of incredible power and humbling tenderness.
February 4, 2022_