10/02/08 Arundhati Roy, "The God of Small Things"

I am having a hard time so far following along with Roy’s “The God of Small Things”. I had a similar time getting trying to get into “Haroun”. A simple as it sounds, I believe it is the names that both Rushdie and Roy use that is causing me so much trouble. A main factor for this is most likely my unfamiliarity with Indian literature. I haven’t really reached out to artists like Roy or Rushdie before, so my initial response in “Haroun” was to “Westernize” the characters—that is, associate the characters with more “familiar” names—in order to easily recognize them. I have tried to stay away from this pattern with “God of Small Things”, though it has been difficult remembering so many characters after just reading a novel in which the characters were not given proper names at all.
Moving on, I would like to comment on just how innocent Roy’s writing style is in “The God of Small Things”. As we said in class, Roy uses a poetic tone that would seem a bit over-the-top by English-speaking authors, but instead fits rather well as an author who uses English as a second language. However, I find that Roy’s use of the English language makes her sound much younger and more naïve, at times sounding as if the novel is being narrated by a child. This writing technique is best used during Estha’s rape by the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man. Already a disturbing and uncomfortable reading experience, Roy’s ability to get inside of Estha’s head to describe the scene is even more unsettling. “Estha’s hand was wet and hot and sticky. It had egg white on it.” Details just how vulnerable, confused, and scared Estha was.