The God of Small Things

Wish I hadn't been neglecting the blog so badly... Taiwan is still being good to me. New news is I've moved into a studio apartment in the "cosmopolitan" center of Taipei, near Zhongxiao Fuxing station. I will admit I feel underdressed sometimes when I'm coming back from a run, sweating like a disgusting wai guo ren (foreigner) and walking by the Gucci and other hoidy toidy department stores. But I have such a wonderful place! Comfy, rooftop studio on the 5th floor. A big patio. It's got a south american feel to it with terracotta tiles and a tin roof that sounds cozy in the rain... I've got a hammock out there -- a little shangri-la to hang in amidst the Taipei madness. Other than that, a lot of my closest friends are leaving in the immediate future. Still trying to learn to be an international citizen and not mind the goodbyes too much. They're hard. A lot of endings and new beginnings. This week I'm ending my formal Chinese studies and starting my master's program. On Wednesday I meet the people I'll be spending the next two years with. I'm excited! Even though it sounds haywire, life's pretty stable and routine. I'll try to report back more often.

I'm going to a conference next week. One of the prep assignments is to write a report on your favorite book and what it's taught you, so I thought I'd share... Hope it's not too boring. Here's the report:

I read the God of Small Things for the first time in 1997. As a regular and selective reader, I don’t like admitting I sometimes forget entire books, and often can’t recall names of authors. Even with this forgetfulness I seldom find myself wanting to reread books. How I know the God of Small Things is special is I’ve never forgotten the story, the characters or the author’s name, and I can reread the book and enjoy it again and again.

The story takes place in Ayemenem in Kerala, India in the home of a three generation family. The time period jumps between the 1960s and early 1990’s. Roy manages to tell the story in a subtle way; as the reader, you become a part of the family through growing to know the daily routines of each individual, their habits, sufferings, behaviors… what life was like for each of them. Although her writing style is subtle, the author winds in the less delicate issues of race, class, discrimination, love, betrayal, Indian history and politics. The story, a tragedy, shows how small ordinary things, such as a careless comment or action, can gradually add up to create bigger situations.

What I find particularly gripping about the book is the author’s writing style. The majority of the story is told from a perspective sympathetic to the fraternal twins in the family, a boy and a girl. The narrative alternates between their way of thinking as 7 year olds, then later on as 31 year olds. The author is able to construct sentences in a way that is verbal and visual; describing thoughts and sensations that mimic the creative and untrained way a child experiences the world. So simple but intense, particularly reading the book as an adult and having to recall and piece together the abstract childlike way of thinking, like being reintroduced to a language you thought you’d forgotten. Her style is one of the reasons I’m able to read and reread this book.

Roy describes Great Stories in the book; her description most definitely also applies to her own work:

"The secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again. THAT is their mystery and magic."

_Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

I find the book inspiring because it reminds me that small events can lead to bigger differences. In the case of the book, there’s a gradual progression of small mistakes and circumstances that lead to the tragic decline of the family. It’s a strong reminder to be conscious and sensitive, but that big positive changes also grow from small snippets of conversation and events. Things that seem insignificant can have huge impacts. Another quote from the book describes this well:

"Perhaps it's true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house---the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture---must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for. Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story."
— Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

The most inspiring lesson I take from The God of Small Things is to let a certain part of you remain untrained, untaught and open. No matter how much experience or education, I want to be able to see things and experience situations with freshness and openness, sensitivity. Roy’s writing style awakens the way I used to think and see my surroundings; her ability to tap into that powerful place of experiencing the world for the first time, untainted and not jaded, and convey it in her writing shows she’s allowed herself to remain untrained and open, in tune with a truer reality.-