The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

First line: May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month.

To end this year of book reviews, I thought this book would be appropriate. Never in my short life have I come across a novel that has affected me so deeply. It's thought-provoking, disgusting, depressing, fervently beautiful, and disruptive. How deep into the soul of a land can you unearth, to gently hold its bones and stare at unflinchingly as Roy has? There is no exaggeration in this statement when I say: Arundhati Roy is a literary genius. And this was her first foray into novel-writing, debuted in 1997. Her next novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is expected to be published next year in June.

The God of Small Things takes us into the world of Rahel and Esthappen, fraternal twins born of Ammu, a Syrian Christian whose failed 'love marriage', sends them back to the abusive household of her parents. However, their lives is one dominated by the 'Love Laws' which dictate "who should be loved, and how. And how much." Their lives gradually intertwine with that of Velutha, an untouchable who has worked for the family since childhood. In the midst of it all is the rumblings of communism and themes of separation and reunion within a society segregated by caste in a post-colonial Kerala.

*hinting at extra special character qualities here

I kid you not, there was a section in this novel that had me put this book away for a week because the suffering of its characters became so intense and so... relatable. Being of Indian heritage myself, the discussion of caste is one that, while soft in conversation in Malaysia, is not completely disregarded But to actually look into the past, and to see how caste-dominance was played out in India, the vile notion of being treated like trash by virtue of your birth, is very real. And is in fact, still a big part of Indian culture today.

The God of Small Things speaks bravely about  the effects of the caste system on its followers, especially of those who are on the lowest rung of the ladder: Untouchables. Dalits. You're so much of nothing that you would have to crawl, close to wherever you went, with a broom tied to your back to sweep away your footsteps. Evidence of your existence swept away by your own hand. Can you imagine a life such as this? Can you think upon an existence wherein you are born to nothing and forced by culture to stay at nothing, even if you have massive potential to contribute to your environment in a big way? Being stripped of the ability to love another because of the colour of your skin and your social strata?

basically

Roy breaks down boundaries and destroys stereotypes, fearlessly shining a light on the plight of subalterns in Indian society. She also picks on the different ways interracial marriage is looked at and the double standard put in place when it involves...Certain races.

This novel is not set chronologically, so you reader have to put the pieces together, bit by bit. It can be irritating, the jumping, the descriptive passages and the use of  local Maliyali dialect littered within the novel, though I would argue it's to preserve the authenticity of the novel's background. There is good reason for the non-linear nature of the writing. At the end of the day, is it not the small things? The small pieces of sadness and the bits of joy, of what we take for granted, that make up the bigger picture of our lives? Are they not scattered across the continuum of our days? Furthermore, Roy was trained as an architect before she turned to activism and essays, therefore the structure of this novel could be said to be one that reflects her beginnings.

Read this book. Today. Next year. Naaley. Fucking hell, read this goddamn book if it's the last thing you do. It's hauntingly beautiful. You'll understand why it won the 1997 Man Booker prize.

tl;dr
Are there animals in the novel?: Nah.
Are there sexy times in it?: Yush. 
Are there dead people in it?: Yep.
Is it lengthy?: It'll certainly take some time to digest.

Reread?: YES. Yes, yes, yes.

Judge the book by its cover: Could do with a better front cover.
Rating: 4.8/5 meows

Pun: What rahel esthappening 

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

First line: "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974."

Let me guess, your adolescence was awkward/bad/terrible/erase-this-part-of-my-life-it-never-even-happened. Sure it was messy but it'll never quite be on par with Cal(lie) Stephanides's. Unless you're a third-generation Greek immigrant who grew up in Detroit, Michigan. In the 80s. And you're intersex. And you only figure it out after an accident with a tractor. If you didn't go through any of those, you had it easy you ungrateful twit.

not as bad as a tractor

The novel begins with the protagonist telling us about his birth, but he goes way back to the start of it all in Bursa, Asia Minor, in the 1920s, with his grandparents. Buckle up, this book is one hell of a ride. If said ride was on a galapagos tortoise trying to get out of a giant bucket, filled with glitter glue.Yeah, this book takes a while to get through because of the immense amount of detail Jeffrey puts into it. When you write a book nine years in the making, you too would try to make the experience as immersive as possible. The protagonist talks about events way beyond his own birth, which led up to it so... as I was saying about that tortoise?

Drawing from his own cultural well, readers will learn quite a bit about Grecian culture, with a focus on the mythology (think minotaur), and how difficult the assimilation process is for refugees. And hey if you'd ever been interested in burlesques, you're in luck.

After his grandparents make it to America, the next stage of the novel follows Cal's parents and how they met, their childhoods, their whirlwind romance, the deteriorating marriage and all that comes in between before we step into the middlesex world of Cal. Born and identifying as female, Calliope becomes Cal when puberty decides to make everything weird. Imagine being raised as a girl, and then thinking maybe you were lesbian, or bisexual, and then along comes this tractor and suddenly you're not all girl and--remember what I said about being grateful?

Middlesex explores in great detail, the life of an intersexed individual in a time where people were really just starting to get to know their genitals and the diseases they were smothering onto each other. So, definitely, pants down, a great time to be alive. Flashbacks to the lives of his grandparents and parents serve to give substance to the current issues Cal faces as he grows into accepting his masculine gender identity. It's a beautiful but painful journey to go on, watching the vestiges of Cal's childhood confusions molt into an adulthood of learning to belong in his own skin. Eugenides constructs the modern day identity of his protagonist by taking into account the domino effect of an entire family history the protagonist himself only fully comprehends at the very end.

It can get draggy because it's incredibly descriptive, but certain readers would very much appreciate the imagery. The author thoroughly explains how the genetics, family history, and the experiences of straddling the sexual spectrum influence Cal's development into accepting his psychosexual identity.

Genetics. Interesting stuff.

It is an arduous journey because sexuality isn't easy to decipher anyway, so kudos to Eugenides for pouring so much effort into documenting the weird and wonderful lives of people with ambiguous genitalia and the challenges of accepting one's gender identity. The verbosity of this novel is arguable a physical manifestation of a 'coming-of-age' period, in four Pulitzer prize-winning parts.

tl;dr
Are there animals in the novel?: Nah. 
Are there sexy times in it?: Yep, with a bit of incest in the mix. Did I just get your attention? 
Are there dead people in it?: Here and there
Is it lengthy?: This one might take a week to cover.

Reread?: No. Read it once and go slow. It's way too long to breeze through. 

Judge the book by its cover: Beautiful. Symbolic. Mythical.
Rating: 4.2/5 meows

Pun: This novel doesn't get straight to the point.