I don’t find myself reading many Indian writers’ works. Even in a school that puts much value into multiculturalism, the literature that I study in class is often from the British or American literary traditions.

Arundhati Roy’s 1997 novel The God of Small Things was a breath of fresh air.

Roy’s prose reveals her mastery of English. The novel is riddled with witticisms and wordplay; while reading the novel, I couldn't help but be reminded of Nabokov.

“Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, plowing it up like gunfire. The old house on the hill wore its steep, gabled roof pulled over its ears like a low hat.”

Roy’s novel is semi-autobiographical, and takes place in her birthplace, Aymanam, a village in the Kottayam district of southern India.

It is the story of the twins Estha and Rahel and their childhood. Unlike many novels from the western tradition, there is no sense of over-sentimentality here. Roy depicts childhood as a dangerous process of disillusion, while maintaining its enchantment; this in part due to Roy’s often poetic prose:

“They lay like that for a long time. Awake in the dark. Quietness

and Emptiness.

Not old. Not young.
But a viable die-able age.

They were strangers who had met in a chance encounter.

They had known each other before life began.”

Roy is critical of some Indian traditions. Untouchability and the Caste System are especially under her microscope. The only adult in the novel who is truly innocent is an untouchable man who is brutally beaten by Indian police.

“no beast has essayed the boundless, infinitely inventive art of human hatred. No beast can match its range and power”.

Roy also offers us a glimpse into Indian culture and art. For instance, there is a scene in the novel in which a Kathakali performance is described. Kathakali is a traditional Indian “dance-drama” including elaborate costumes and Indian mythological narratives; stories from the "Ramayana," for example. Traditionally, this performance would go on all night and end in the early morning, but as Roy explains, they are often shortened for Western audiences.