Review of The God of Small Things

             This book is very well written. The narrator is an imaginative seven-year-old whose fresh perspective reminded me of Scout’s narration from To Kill a Mockingbird. The similes are memorable ( . . . like polishing firewood) and the characters of the Kochamma family believably complicated.

              One aspect of the book that resonated with me is the depiction of the breach that exists between someone’s political identity and that person’s actions. The story is set in 1967 in Kerala, India, in a time when the Naxalites (Communist Party of India) had political power in local politics. However, not even Marxism can uproot the entrenched caste system.

              Chacko is a pretty woke character, standing up against domestic violence in his own family and going on rants about his family’s Anglophilia. His political beliefs come up frequently in family life: he tells Ammu that she is fascist for the way she punishes her children – “even children have some rights, for God’s sake!” (81).

              However, Chacko is also a business owner who employs untouchables. He is hesitant to provide them with accident insurance, higher wages, etc. He goes against tradition to invite untouchables to “sit at table with him and drink tea,” but this act of kindness is interpreted by Ammu as manipulative flirting – “a landlord forcing his attentions on women who depended on him for their livelihood” (62-63).  

              A local Communist politician, K.N.M. Pillai, reveals that he tries to compartmentalize the different aspects of Chacko’s personality: “[Pillai] told himself that Chacko-the-client and Chacko-the-Management were two different people. Quite separate of course from Chacko-the-Comrade” (115). Chacko himself suffers from some cognitive dissonance due to the tension between Chacko-the-Comrade and Chacko-the-Management.

              Towards the end of the book, Pillai refuses to stand up for an overachieving untouchable, saying, “it is not in the Party’s interests to take up such matters” (271). The other untouchables resent the overachieving one, which makes Pillai’s position understandable. However, when the politician calling for revolution refuses to support the social advancement of an untouchable, it signifies hypocrisy – “another religion turned against itself” (272).

              The main message of the book seems to be that the Love Laws – “the laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much” – ought to be overturned (33). This wasn’t a message I resonated deeply with, but I do appreciate Roy showing what happens (spoiler: incest) if you accept the logical extremes of refusing the Love Laws, and leaving most of her readership uncomfortable in the process.