Tuesday, October 19, 2004

The God of Small Things

TGST is a book that I've always wanted to read, ever since I first heard about it 7 years back. Now, thanks to the generosity of a certain Old Man, I finally got my hands on a paperback copy. Don’t ask me why I didn’t just go out and buy myself a copy. It’s just that I don’t. That’s all.

What I liked most about the book, apart from the fact that it shows the hidden face of our ‘KochuKeralam’, is the way in which the author uses words to create vivid and sometimes disturbing imagery. How words are used to create an image in the reader’s mind rather than directly mean anything. And how those images say things that words probably can’t. Refreshing change from the usual stuff.

It touches on almost every aspect from politics to religion, family and hypocrisy. If you ask me, the last one is very important cause Malayalees have developed it into an impressive art form. And yet it does not criticize or moralize, leaving that part to the reader, if he still cares.