Reviews

• 舞台であるkeralaに魅力を感じた

  GW前にKERALA＆MUMBAIへ赴任することになっている為、この地を少しでも学ぶ必要があったので購入致しました。著者のArundhati Roy氏が脚本担当、出演された映画「In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones」も感銘を受けた大切な要素だ。当時は２６，７歳位で大変可愛らしい女性だなという印象。映画の内容はご本人が建築家の卵として学生時代を淡々と語ったものです。当時のインド国内では大変評価が高くお勧めできる作品です。 こちらを読み終えた後はSalman Rushdie氏著のMidnight's Children、Jhumpa Lahiri氏著のInterpreter of Maladies, Rohinton Mistry氏著のSuch a Long Journeyを大好きなLeopold Cafeの地で楽しみたいと思います(笑）

• 長いレビューです。最後にAudible版のレビューもあり

  kindle版 ASIN : B0051UH6W4 出版社 : Fourth Estate; New Ed版 (2011/5/26) ファイルサイズ : 435 KB 本の長さ : 355ページ のレビュー 20世紀英語文学の掉尾（ちょうび）を飾る傑作。 登場人物（双子の子からみた） Estha； 双子の男の子 1962年生まれ。 Rahel； 双子の女の子 Pappachi； 元英領インドの官僚で昆虫学者。シリア正教クリスチャン。おじいさん。 Mammachi； 一家の漬物工場を切り盛りする。おばあさん。 Baby Kochamma； 同居している独身の大叔母。過去にカトリックに改宗。 Ammu； 双子の母。両親に反対されてヒンドゥーの男と結婚するが、ろくでなし男につかまった結果になる。離婚して二人の子を連れ実家へ戻っている。 Chacko； 長男でオックスフォード卒。イングランド人と結婚したが子どもが大きくなる前に離婚。 Margaret ； Chackoがイングランドで結婚した相手。後に離婚。別の男と再婚するが、その相手が死去。 Sophie Mol； MargaretとChackoの娘。双子と同世代。クリスマス休暇を過ごすためケララを母と訪れる。 Velutha； おばあさんの漬物工場の技術者で不可触賤民。こどもたちがなついている。 最初に読んだ時は、ちょっと技巧が鼻につき、それに子どもを使ったあざとさが気になったけれども、再読して、あらためてねじ伏せられました。もちろん、完全に理解できて、納得したわけではありませんが、20世紀を代表する英語小説でしょう。 インドのケララ州を舞台に、家族の闇を、双子の兄・妹を通して描いた物語。差別された者がさらに差別し、裏切られた者がさらに他人を裏切る、という構造が絶妙に描かれています。三つの宗派のキリスト教、マルクス主義、カースト制、性の抑圧など、子どもたちを囲む残酷な現実が描かれます。 もっとも、そうした重いテーマよりも、全編にちりばめられているのは、幼い子どもたちの言葉遊びや歌。インドの上流家庭で、英語を話し、英語の歌を歌って育つとは、こういうことなんだなと納得しました。もっとも実は家族みんなの母語はマラヤーラム語であるようですが。 一家ばかりでなく、まわりの人々も英語を話しています。わたしが一番可笑しく、残酷だと思ったのは、共産党（ケララ州の与党です！）の印刷業の息子、なんと名前がレーニンという子が、意味もわからずシェイクスピアの『ジュリアス・シーザー』の一節を暗唱するシーン。 ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your—?’ ‘lend me yaw YERS; ’ あはは。そういえば、わたしがya-yasという語をおぼえたのはローリング・ストーンズのアルバム・タイトルからですが、この小説のクライマックスでもラジオからストーンズの歌が流れます。その作詞作曲クレジットは、ジャガー=リチャーズになっていますが、実際の作者は1969年に溺死したメンバーのブライアン・ジョーンズらしいという噂もありますね。そのへんのところまで暗示しているのでしょう。 そこまで細かい引用にこだわらなくても、ミュージカル映画『サウンド・オブ・ミュージック』は知っておいたほうがよいでしょう。何度も歌のフレーズが出てきます。一見楽しい映画のようで、実はオーストリアでは嫌われている映画であって、その理由はウェブ上でも検索できます。さまざまな裏切りがテーマのこの作品で、映画のストーリーと重ね合わせた部分もありますから、このアマゾンのビデオででも見ておいたらいかがでしょうか。 Audible版の朗読も聞いています。女性の朗読は聞きやすいはっきりした発音です。すぐに気づくのは、会話部分がインド英語のアクセントでよまれていることです。わたしはインド英語のアクセントがちゃんと判別できるわけではないのですが、身分や年齢によって訛りが強かったり弱かったりと、区別をつけているようです。作者のインタビューなどをyoutubeで聞くと、ロイも堂々とインド英語で話していますから、かなり適切な朗読だと思います。あまり長い小説の朗読を聞くのはたいへんですが、この程度の長さならおすすめです。 最後に蛇足ですが、翻訳について。わたしは現物を見ていません。DHCという現在は化粧品やサプリ食品のメイカーとして有名な会社から出版されていました。もともと翻訳出版から出発した会社ですが、翻訳権を他に譲渡する例はないようです。新潮社か白水社、早川書房か岩波書店あたりから翻訳が出てもおかしくない作品なのに、文庫化もなく困ったことです。ちゃんとした翻訳家に新訳を出してほしいのですが、原書を読む以外ないでしょうね。

• Seems promising

  I'm looking forward to reading this book!

• Wonderful Words

  What a beautiful novel! Each and every word is perfectly chosen to capture the mood, the smells, the feelings of one families life in India. The story is not overwhelming by any means, but how she puts the words together keeps you on the edge of your chair and makes you yearn to continue turning the pages. Any fledgling writer should read this book to see how the boundaries of the English language can constantly be expanded.

• Wonderful Discriptions

  Roy has done a great job with his book. The story is fairly strait forward and simple after you take a step back and look at it. But getting there is so much fun. Roy's descriptions and the images that she evokes are great. Viable Die-able age and other such things just stick in your head. This is a great book to read and loose yourself in. The characters and the sadness that surrounds the decay of a family. I loved reading this book.

• poignant

  １９６０～７０年代のインド。南西部のケララ州を舞台に紡がれる一族の物語。 独特の風土、自然と、まだ色濃く残るカースト制、台頭する労働運動などを背景に、人々の確執、愛憎、崩壊する家族の日々が切々と語られる。 31歳になった主人公たち(双子の兄妹）の想いと、その幼年時代（7歳）の追想が錯綜する。 独特の英文というべきか、短い詩的な表現が多く、それらの意味するところをとらえるのが難解だった。 １９９７年 ブッカー賞。

• An impressive story

  This is the first book I have read by this author and I am glad that it is his debut book. The story is lovely and convinced me that Arundhati Roy is a great storyteller. Many of the characters are rich and original and the story is full of credible twists and turns, making it the interesting read that readers are always looking for. This fascinating novel that is set in India in the late 60s begins with the funeral of a cousin of the novel's narrator. Rahelas she is called shares with her twin brother Estha share family secrets that are masterfully presented to the reader in this gripping, suspenseful and revealing prose that is told from the point of a child. Rich in characters and an amazing plot, The God of Small Things takes you into the fascinating setting of India , its politics, rich culture , unique social and caste system, numerous taboos, and its turbulent rich which all have an influence on the characters of the story. A highly recommended read: Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, NAMESAKE,THE KITE RUNNER, THE USURPER AND OTHER STORIES

• 珠玉の感性・・・

  インド南部・ケーララ州を舞台に、（多分に著者のRoyの遍歴を思い起こさせる）帰郷してきた主人公の女性の現在と、幼少期の悲劇的な出来事が交錯して語られる物語。緑と水に溢れた南インドの美しい自然を背景に、パセティックな恋愛が、カースト制度、共産主義等、現代にまで通底するモチーフを織り交ぜながら進んでいく。 特筆すべきは、自然の描写と散文の美しさだろう。椰子の木と運河の織り成すバックウォーターの風景が目に浮かぶような（行った事があるからかもしれないが）自然の描き方は秀逸。ややアイロニカルで、ウィットに富んだ文章は斬新で物語の哀切さをよく引き立たせている。 文句なしの傑作。次作が読みたいです。

• 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.

• A masterpiece. The book received a little well-worn

• El caos en palabras. Conocer más sobre la vida en la India, su sistema de castas, su caos y su belleza. Todo aquel que se jacte de ser un gran lector, que ame los retos y la belleza de la narrativa debe conocer esta historia. Todo gira al rededor de la muerte de una niña. Por medio de saltos en el tiempo, de descripciones poéticas y complejas como la vida misma, conocemos la historia de una familia que se salta todas las normas de la cultura al amar. Sígueme en instagram para más recomendaciones literarias. @Nora_d_tinta_y_papel

• This story most of us might have watched in some of the movies , heard ör seen it happening surrounding us but the way Arundhati Roy has weaved it around the characters is exquisite . It changes something in you.

• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy is not merely a novel, it is an experience that seeps quietly into your bones and lingers long after the final page. It crushed my heart in the gentlest, most unexpected way. Roy’s prose is lyrical yet piercing, weaving childhood innocence with the brutal realities of caste, love, and loss. The story unfolds like memory itself - fragmented, nonlinear, and hauntingly intimate. Through Estha and Rahel, Roy captures the fragile world of “small things” that ultimately shape irrevocable destinies. What makes the novel extraordinary is how it renders pain so delicately that it almost feels beautiful, even as it devastates you. There is a quiet rage beneath its poetic surface, a critique of societal norms that dictate who can be loved and how. The tragedy does not erupt; it seeps, slow and suffocating, until you realize you are already undone. This Booker winning novel is not one you simply read and move on from. It demands emotional recovery. Even thinking about it feels like touching a bruise. Some books entertain; this one transforms and leaves you aching in silence.

Purchase links