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Audible sampleThe God of Small Things
Audible Audiobook – UnabridgedArundhati Roy (Author), Sneha Mathan (Narrator), & 1 more
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 14,954 ratings
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Man Booker Prize Winner, 1997
Likened to the works of Faulkner and Dickens when it was first published 20 years ago, this extraordinarily accomplished debut novel is a brilliantly plotted story of forbidden love and piercing political drama, centered on the tragic decline of an Indian family in the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India.
Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, the twins Rahel and Esthappen fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family - their lonely, lovely mother Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts).
When their English cousin and her mother arrive on a Christmas visit, the twins learn that things can change in a day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever. The brilliantly plotted story uncoils with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability. Yet nothing prepares you for what lies at the heart of it.
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©1997 Arundhati Roy (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
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11 hours and 45 minutes
Author
Arundhati Roy
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Audible SampleThe God of Small Things: A BBC Radio Full-Cast DramatisationThe God of Small Things: A BBC Radio Full-Cast DramatisationArundhati Roy
Audible Audiobook
Product details
Listening Length 11 hours and 45 minutes
Author Arundhati Roy
Narrator Sneha Mathan
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date June 06, 2017
Publisher Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B071H9WK2H
Best Sellers Rank #72,927 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#731 in Fiction Sagas
#804 in Political Fiction (Books)
#2,676 in Literary Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)
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4.3 out of 5 stars
Top reviews from the United States
I know who I am
5.0 out of 5 stars Everything out of the ordinary.Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2014
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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!
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.
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 you this world, and read this real, poetic, sad, grand, too-small-to-be-contained Book.
And the Kathakali dancers danced and their drummers drummed, to ask pardon of their Gods, 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. 1 - If in your ebook you stumble upon lost inverted commas, dizzy dashes and en-dashes, overlook them. They are just simple typos - perhaps there on purpose, who knows?
This book is like a 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.
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Urenna
VINE VOICE
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and PerplexingReviewed in the United States on December 29, 2014
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The author goes back and forth from the past to the present. At first, I found this annoying. However, I begin to admire that the author had her own rules for writing this novel. There are instances where there is no standard punctuation. There are similes I found indefinable. I would reread a passage trying to get the gist of what the author conveyed
The main characters are the fraternal twins, Rahel, daughter and Esthappen (Estha), son, the children of Ammu, a divorcé, her lover, Velutha, a Paravan (untouchable).
The story begins with the funeral of Sophie Mol, cousin and playmate of the twins. Sophie Mol was the daughter of Ammu’s brother, Chacko and his former wife, Englishwoman, Margaret Kochamma.
Sophie and Margaret had recently arrived from England at the invitation of Chacko after the death of Margaret’s second husband.
Ammu and the twins are forbidden to sit with the family during the funeral service. The reason will be revealed later.
A disillusioned Ammu, married to an abusive alcoholic, returned to the family home in Ayemenem. Her father, John Ipe (Pappachi) does not believe her husband’s English boss requested he sleep with her. At home, she is expected to live out her days, in shame at divorcing her husband.
After his failed marriage and the death of their father, John, Chacko, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, returned home to manage his mother’s pickle business.
Home is where Chacko and Ammu’s blind mother, Shoshamma Ipe, known as Mammachi (grandmother) resides. Mammachi founded and owned the Paradise Pickles and Preserves factory.
Also living in the home are the twins’ deceitful, vindictive, unmarried, paternal great-aunt, Baby Kochamma. Throughout the novel, Baby Kochamma is devoted to self-interest. She is the catalyst who revealed life and death are in the power of the tongue.
Kochu Maria (little Maria), is the family cook.
This book gives a brief glimpse at the social mores of India concerning the “Untouchables.” Historically the country was divided among caste and color lines; an ancient system that rejected their fellow countrymen with discrimination, violence, persecution and social exclusion.
In the book, the family’s bias is expressed with profound intensity when it is discovered Ammu and the brilliant and likable Velutha are having an affair. Velutha was the intelligent, skilled artisan, awarded a high position in the pickle factory by Mammachi.
Even Velutha’s father, Vellya Paapen, was angry and horrified at his son “crossing the line.” Vellya felt indebted to Mammachi. She had purchased his artificial eye and treated his family well.
The author’s vivid description of Mammachi’s deep-seated anger toward the “messenger,” Vellya, Velutha’s father, with Velutha was profound.
Although blind, Mammachi’s vile denunciations and spittle hit their mark.
Mammachi’ showed tolerance for her son Chacko’s “men’s needs” when he sexually exploited the female factory workers. However, she expressed intolerance for Ammu’s tender love affair with Velutha.
Ammu was locked away in her room.
As I read this book, I discovered the childhood terror witnessed by Rahel and Estha had damaged them emotionally as adults. Estha refused to communicate.
As children, the twins were very close and had their own way of communicating. They even read backwards.
Chacko, the weak-willed, indolent son, manipulated by Baby Kochamma’s promptings, ejected his sister, Ammu, from their home.
Baby Kochamma is the “keeper of honor,” the traditionalist, and advocate of the caste system. Because of her deceit, she has her own reasons for wanting Ammu ousted and the children gone. I will not give the reasons away, but she strikes fear in the children’s hearts.
I believe the small things are Velutha and Ammu’s love. He loved her children and they him.
Ammu and Velutha were two kindred spirits. Theirs was a love affair that maybe even today would be unthinkable and not permitted in Indian society. But 40 years ago, they could have no future, so they made no plans. They lived for each night together.
Although during the late sixties and early seventies, this was considered a patriarchal society, the women are strong characters.
Mammachi was an accomplished violinist, later in life she was founder and owner of Paradise Pickles and Preserves, much to the annoyance of a violently abusive husband.
I admired Ammu’s resilience. She defended herself against her husband, Baba’s, physical abuse, refused to sleep with his English boss and ultimately divorced him. I admired that she ignored the caste system and found love with Velutha.
Velutha had an important role. Much of the conflict involved him, but in some instances he appeared almost invisible to me. I saw him as tender and loving with Ammu. A socialist, a man who desired change in his country.
The prosaic love scene between Ammu and Velutha were beautifully written. The brief violence in the book is powerfully written too. I felt queasy reading it.
I would have enjoyed more on the ill-fated lovers, Ammu and Velutha.
Although the caste system and discrimination has been outlawed, I think Arundhati Roy’s book reveals what is still prevalent today, cruel and often inhumane treatment of India’s “Untouchables.”
I think the author conveyed how deeply embedded the caste system is. How it destroys and demeans human lives and stereotypes them.
Toward the end, Ammu’s outcome was sorely missed.
The relationship that developed between the twins was perplexing.
Imagery and symbolisms are common throughout the book. This novel would stimulate avid conversation in a book club.
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Mrs. Olga A. Danes-volkov
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic readReviewed in the United Kingdom on November 22, 2023
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I think this is the second time I read this book. I always have to read books several times to remember them so it's no reflection on this one.
Needless to say, this is an extraordinary book, funny, sad, a view into a particular sort of Indian life. It is beautifully written, so that you have to linger over some phrases or sentences. I will read it again one day and I thoroughly recommend it.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing. A must readReviewed in India on October 15, 2023
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Made a deep impact. Speechless. Out of words and not sure what inspired Roy to write this. Must read for all good book lovers. Adding this to my favorite books list
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Ram S
5.0 out of 5 stars An enriching reading experienceReviewed in India on June 30, 2020
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The God of small things: A reading experience.
So, why should you care to read or consider picking up a 340-something paged book published in 1997 which is about a tragedy that veils over a perfectly functioning dysfunctional family over three generations full of either divorces, deaths, or oppressions like a dark cloud. Nothing new. A family full of scholars, educated men and women, with degrees from Oxford, ex-nuns, blessed religious men with a lineage that is highly reputed and looked up on in their tiny village in Kerala, who are busy beating their wives leaving physical and emotional scars behind, planning on how to inflict pain to one another but are concerned only to correct their children to say 'thank you' instead of 'thangyou'. Simply following laws laid down by society on who should be loved, who should be privileged, who should be spared, who should not be touched. Nothing new. Politicians being politicians; small or big. Children being children, naive and unable to foresee the consequences for the actions they took. And adults, who used them as pawns to get what they deeply desired. Nothing new. Caste-based, gender based discrimination. Nothing new. Sex and death. Nothing new. An inventive art of human hatred, that no beast can ever match. Nothing new.
But, what's new is (or was) the incredible structure it is mounted up on. Author Arundhati Roy not only weaves a story of small things beautifully, but also craftily with utmost care bringing her architect training to it's full power. A terror that happened over one night, the cost it paid in two lives dead and other lives living dead thereafter. Scattered rather carefully and skillfully the cues of the impending doom, each time you get lost in it's eerie yet highly descriptive and beautiful world of prose about other things, big and small. Each time only to unveil a little more. To keep you hooked, giving one detail at a time. Glittered with happiness and innocence, here and there; only to be stolen. Inevitable, perhaps. The narration jumps swiftly from present to past to somewhere in between assuming it's reader's higher mental functioning to be as good as the derailed family's. 'Thank you', it is. And in the end, when the dust settles down you get to sit back, not relaxed but perplexed and connecting all the dots in the story scattered over timeline, reframing and reorganazing as it must have originally took place, event after event. Thought after thought. Character after character, dissecting each detail only to realise that it's a story you've already known. You already heard. But, only then we start to appreciate the sheer brilliance of writing, and it's master Arundhati Roy. It's a completely rewarding process. Complex, layered is it's story telling and it's characters; not bad, not good but somewhere in between, human. The events that follow doesn't come out as a surprise or shock but a nuanced continuum with a perfect rationale of why they did for what they did. Thanks to an amazing character and story build up.
An eye opening saga that mandates you to think of what's fair, what's not. What's human, what's not. Of whom should be loved, and how. And how much. Who are them to lay down laws? And Should you abide to them? It allows reader to form an opinion, completely unbiased, and free which is a rare achievement in itself in an era of preaching and judgemental men, books, and media. In other's hands, this would be as dead as a fish picked out of water; lifeless, but in the hopeful hands of Arundhati Roy who breathed a life into this fish, dead as we know it to be. But, the attempt is what counts, and an outstanding achievement in the world of literature is what counts.
A true masterpiece! - Dr. Jeshu Adhikam
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Nivedita Dhankhar
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, Beautiful, Simply Beautiful!Reviewed in India on August 14, 2023
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"The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy is a masterpiece that takes readers on an intricate journey through a web of family secrets, societal norms, and personal desires. Set in the state of Kerala, India, the novel centers around the lives of fraternal twins Estha and Rahel and their family's tragic history. Arundhati Roy's writing is lush, poetic, and brimming with vivid imagery that captures the essence of the Indian landscape and culture. The story weaves between past and present, exploring themes of caste, forbidden love, and the impact of colonialism. It's a powerful exploration of how the smallest actions and decisions can have far-reaching consequences. If you're drawn to beautifully written narratives that delve into the complexities of human relationships and the interplay of social forces, "The God of Small Things" is a mesmerizing and thought-provoking read. 📚🌟
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Jayachandran A
5.0 out of 5 stars A Booker Prize winning novel.Reviewed in India on October 3, 2023
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It is an amazing novel about small town life in rural Kerala written in a charming style.
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