One of the most ambitious debut novels: The God of Small Things

Though the writing style seems a little quaint today, Arundhati Roy's 1997 novel, The God of Small Things, still stands up as one of the best novels in English int he late 20th century and definitely worth a read today. She takes on # of major issues of her time and place - the novel is et in the southernmost state in India, Kerala - most notably the deep-seated class or caste prejudice that has remained intractable in India across generations. It's also a powerful love story, a political tract, an unsettling look at an instance of childhood sexual abuse and its after-effects, and, most touchingly a coming-of-age story shared by twin brother and sister, Estha and Rahel. E and R are at the center of all of the plot elements in the novel, and the essential narrative covers a span of only about two weeks - from the arrival in the small town of the twins' cousin, Sophie, and her (white) mother to Sophie's death by drowning and the horrifying after-effects, notably the mendacious charges against the "untouchable," or Paravan, man - Valutha - who was vital to the operation of the family pickle and preserve business (Paradise Preserves), a friend and mentor to the twins, and the secret lover of their mother, Ammu. Roy holds off the inevitable sex scene till the last chapter, then gives it her all - a smart decision, as by that point we know the tragic consequences of this liaison. Over the course of the novel, which is not told chronologically, we get the back story on most of the family members and thus see the social and psychological forces at work that led to the multiple tragedies. There are some terrifically powerful passages and wonderful descriptions of the dwellings and of the topography, as well as some touches of sly humor amid all the pathos. My quibble, though, is that Roy's style is often - too often - over the top, with lots of word play and puns - in the tradition of Joyce and, I think, Rushdie - examples would be her propensity to break words apart, e.g. Lay Ter, and most of all her predilection for sentence fragments and lists, which makes the style feel jagged and incomplete. Such writing was au courant back in the 90s but feels mannered and out of date today. That aside, the novel is so much more ambitious and copious than most debut fiction and still worth reading.