It's ten-to-two. It's ten-to-two on Rahel's painted watch. It’s ten-to-two on Rahel’s painted watch which lies under
Everything out of the ordinary.
It's ten-to-two. It's ten-to-two on Rahel's painted watch. It’s ten-to-two on Rahel’s painted watch which lies under the revolved earth of The History House in the Heart of the Darkness.
It’ll be always ten-to-two on the stillness of Roy’s book as the derailed freight train of her story slams into our hearts. It’ll be always ten-to-two when Sorrow, Pain, Unrequited Love, Too Much Love, and Unbearable, yet Understandable, Truths of Life collapse from their wagons and bury us all under them; It’ll be always ten-to-two as the train’s sharp wheels scar our souls as deep as the ugly scars on Mammachi’s head, her blind soul carefully hidden by the gray hair and they will be there forever, for us to carry. Ours will be beautiful scars.
Scars… Healed scars. Scars healed by Unbearable Forbidden Necessary Cleaning Love, which will always be able to follow the Music escaping from a tangerine radio as it floats in the Air.
The Still Air of Life.
The Air of Roy’s story is filled with the haunting Truths of Life, so heavy to carry, they need to be shared, breathed by the twins, Esthappen, the boy-man, and Rahel, the girl-woman, as One. They are so horrible to be spoken of, that Rahel’s eyes becomes empty, empty with everything and Estha stops speaking, speaking with all. Inside. But the Truths of Life leak as Mammachi’s Pickles’ bottles have leaked, impossible to be tamed into perfection, silent as a mute shriek of grief, imperceptible as a light cutting deep into darkness.
As History evolves and revolves as the round World we live in, the skyblue old Plymouth, with its painted rack falling apart, thunders the careening story of Life and Death.
Life and Death. Love and Hate. Angels and Demons. Humans and Beasts. Happiness and Rules. The Big Things and The Small Things, which in a reversal of their inherent nature belonged to the Small light God, who sweeps clean his steps as he walks backward, and the Big powerful God (god?), who stomps into the House with his dirty, muddied boots.
Roy leads us past glass of pickles and jellies of Paradise Pickles & Preserves, the factory; past The Sound of Music, the film; and past childhood, marriage, madness, pedophilia, poverty, violence, injustice and betrayal. And love, so much love.
With no mercy, she tows us past the lost, hidden beauties and still there horrors of India; past confused Indians, immersed in caste hierarchy and lost in the war between British Imperialism and Karl Marx Communism; forced Evangelism; past Elvis Presley, Oxford, Coca-Cola, American TV shows and London life; all preferred, favorites in spite of the unique, laid-to-waste-in-twenty-minutes Kathakali dance.
And she dresses us in saris of intolerance sewed carefully by single, married and widowed women and she gives us the painted masks of their unavailable, chauvinist kinsmen.
For us, she disrobes the once-one turned-lonely children and two couples of forbidden lovers - who had already been bared, robbed… Loved less… The four of them The Gods of Small Things.
And she makes us watch the Terror and the Love.
I read this in two seatings only because I had to get a couple of hours’ sleep. I was frozen in my armchair, fossilized in time by the unjustified justice of my few smiles and many tears; nerves uncapped, shaking, almost hiding, as I saw many of my thoughts being SHOUTED OUT LOUD at me, from me.
Will I read it again? Yes. Later. (Lay. Ter.)
Now, I need a moment. Of quiet emptiness. To rage.
Et tu, English, Indians, Christians, Syrian Christians, Hindus, Pelaya, Pulaya, Paravan, Touchables and Untouchables, Lower Middle Upper Classes, No Classes, all-and-yet-never Comrades! Who saw and looked away!
(view spoiler)[Et tu, Sophie Mol! The unfortunate English child killed-killer of the simple happiness of Rahel's and Estha’s childhood, the two-egg twin that was only One.
Et tu, Pappachi, the Imperial Entomologist, domestic abuser, proud and full of cruel, ugly moths; Mammachi, the almost-blind beaten-wife and example of Christian beatitude; Vellya Paapen, the one with a mortgaged glass eye and the real blind one; Baby grand aunt Kochamma, the gullible girl turned bitter-sour, with her perfect Per-Nun-Ciation and unfair, hasty judgements and psychologic torture! Who played alone-along their parts, ignorantly not knowing life was no rehearsal!
Et tu, poor Rahel and Estha! Children so loved less, from the Beginning until the End, the only one, forever un-living-dead bearers’ of short sad lives and long alive deaths, who didn't know how to do otherwise. (hide spoiler)]
Et tu, All-of-Us! Who are rehearsing the Play and making Black Holes in the Universe, while out-of-our-minds, we count our Keys, looking into the void-avoiding the smelly injustice being distributed!
What it worth it? The price to pay for a forbidden love? Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. I will need to read it again. Later. Now, I need a moment. Of empty quietness. To Praise. To Love.
But no words of mine would do justice to Roy’s work of art, so leave me here, hurting and loving, stabbed in the back by my own hand with the Truths of my-your-our Life, accepting a bit more of myself-your-our world, and read this real, poetic, sad, grand, too-small-to-be-contained Book.
And the Kathakali dancers danced and their drummers drummed, asking their Gods to forgive them, as we also should do for the daily, unconscious murder of our Gods of Small Things.
While it’s ten-to-two.
Before it’s too late…
———————————————————————
In the light of my last review of another book, where I closed its ebook covers at 20% because of typos, missing commas, too-many-grand-long-forgotten words and foreign mottos written wrongly, loose-lost opinions about historical facts, and over-the-top “'pumpkin bums’ descriptions of nothing-happening-to-many-characters-that-had-nothing-to-do-with-any-one”, I think that to be fair to those who read my reviews, I owe an explanation to my 5 star rating for ‘The God of Small Things’.
Roy took me through the creation and death of an ornamental garden; made me sat in a church filled with ants, a baby bat and a dead child. I traveled in a bluesky Plymouth on a road full of frog stains while she uses foreign words, many half-full sentences, repeated ideas and (over-the-top, some will say) analogies. I consulted the dictionary more than a couple of times, as English is not my mother language and she uses words I was not familiar with (Probably, I would have to consult the Portuguese dictionary too).
She made me wait, as a pregnant woman waits, as I read story upon story of many different characters, who seemed to have nothing to do with Rahel and Estha or anyone else, but were all linked somehow by society and social relationships.
Yes, this book could have been smaller, but it could have been bigger. But if it were different, then it wouldn’t be ‘The God of Small Things’.
I didn’t closed the book at 20% and I rated her work 5 stars.
Why? Because.
Because there are books and books; authors and authors.
Because I don’t care if another author has used a style before Roy used it. I don’t care if there is another author who does it better than she did it. What readers and reviewers sometimes don’t understand is that gifted authors are often gifted-avid-readers, with screaming souls begging to be set free; who drown in the works they have read and let them soak in and soothe their pains. These authors are allowed to use all the styles as their own, without being accused of stealing them, as I’ve seen a few reviewers raging about. And I tell you that as an avid reader with a newly-freed author’s soul, hoping to be one day as gifted as Roy.
Because what I care is that, in Roy’s work, there are magical, complex, centuries of old-untold relationships to be read about, learned and admired, in the middle of the marvel unseemly-going-nowhere descriptions of a ripple fruit bursting and an orange sun setting.
Because Roy’s Universe is raw and rough, a few times sweet, filled with her beautiful, sharp-edged opinions - that some may think prejudiced - but are historically based and lived. She tells us an Indian story that could have been a Brazilian story. My story. Your story.
Because what I care is that, without asking my permission, Roy took my soul and gave it back; Sadder for a moment, but more knowledgeable and fuller of passion.
Because this is not a book for everyone, but for those who live life on its full, and are grateful for the possibility that, even being of die-able age, they are still alive; for those who are interested in relationships and its octopus sucking tentacles; for those who are mindful of how cruel the world can be and yet are able to see the beauty of a sunset and a strict forbidden incest love told in poetical, not-rhymed words; for those who can stand up for others in need. For those who love.
“Because Anything can Happen to Anyone. It’s Best to be Prepared.” Arundhati Roy, in The God of Small Things
P.S. 2 - If you stumble upon loose-lost reviews, overlook them and take your chance. This book is like a sttuborn-child or a loved-lover, who should never be loved less, for his perchance carelessness, because it belongs to the Universe of Rippling Truths of Life....more
Poet Gentleness
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