Tuesday, February 28, 2017
'The God of Small Things' is the Book That Changed My Life
In the article "The God of Small Things is the Book That Changed My Life," there is one point that Mai Nardone makes that truly resonates with me. Towards the end of the article, Nardone mentions that Arundhati Roy's novel holds similarities to dystopian novels in that it issues "the same warnings..., only less explicitly." Based in a country experiencing wakes of both communism and colonialism, Nardone explains that the characters living in Kerala are "caught in the orbit of local norms and societal pressures." In a dystopian novel, once a character is able to break from this orbit, he realizes that the pressures of society and of how someone should live come from within. One example of this in The God of Small Things is the idea of "love laws." The "love laws" stand as guidelines for the characters -- these "laws" issue warnings about how one person should love another and the dangers of loving someone too much. These love laws bring the characters outside of their bubble and bring them into a realization of the heartbreak and disappointment that life brings. Much like a dystopian novel, reading The God of Small Things forces us out of our comfortables scope and "takes us outside the sort of thinking to which we're accustomed." Nardone adds that because the intended audience of The God of Small Things is English speakers, Arundhati Roy directly brings us out of our comfort zones and forces us to face the reality of life in other parts of the world.
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I really enjoyed this post (especially because it reminded me to read the article), but also your point about how Roy brings us out of our safety net to read about another culture and changes our way of thinking. The version of a story we hear in the novel requires us to think it through and consider the different perspectives, which brings up the danger of a single story. When it comes to the topic of love, we must especially do this because of the entangled relationships. I think literature that truly resonates with the reader and causes an afterthought is the most successful.
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