A novel I longed to read was really worth the wait.
I wanted to read this book, the time I read about Arundhati Roy bringing the Booker prize to India. But 'fortunately' I was living off my allowance those days and I dint want to put the pressure on my parents. So I pushed this book into the stack allotted in the trenches of my mind, where it creped down to oblivion. Later when I had the chance in college, I had lost myself and the stack was lost (I was to discover it was quite recoverable). After my rediscovery of my true self during the employed times, I was able to reclaim my long lost stacks and I started a frantic search and rescue in the stack. I have been reading like there is no tomorrow since then.
I started on this novel, the beginning of July and during my busy but useless schedule, I’m glad that I was able to enjoy this book within a fortnight. As I said earlier, only now I recognize why destiny shied this book away from me all these years. I could have never understood this book, had I read it any earlier. This fact made me think a lot philosophically and that’s was made me write this long prelude to my endeavor with this book.
The novel is set in the backdrop of Kerala and its Syrian Christian Community centered in Kottayam in the 60s or 70s presumably. It narrates the life and times of a tragedy that happened in a typical Syrian Christian upper class family and how it turned around the life of twins. This feels like a tragedy from the outside but from the viewpoint of the young protagonists, but in fact to the reader this is a magical journey through the childhood. I could identify with the children and the narrative stands out, clearly because of the freshness and tenderness of the children's mind which Ms.Roy has captured quite brilliantly. Only on adult looking Peter Pan can craft a narrative as innocent as I saw in this book.
I believe that’s the strength of this book. It captures the small and minute details which often slip the adult eyes but are devastatingly large in the eyes of the children. It captures the small joys and happiness and doubts and assurances of the kid's life without delving deep into the abyss of examining the adult thought process.
A simple and powerful story 'of small things' told by the young at heart to an audience who is into 'large things' to be bothered in their reality.
I wanted to read this book, the time I read about Arundhati Roy bringing the Booker prize to India. But 'fortunately' I was living off my allowance those days and I dint want to put the pressure on my parents. So I pushed this book into the stack allotted in the trenches of my mind, where it creped down to oblivion. Later when I had the chance in college, I had lost myself and the stack was lost (I was to discover it was quite recoverable). After my rediscovery of my true self during the employed times, I was able to reclaim my long lost stacks and I started a frantic search and rescue in the stack. I have been reading like there is no tomorrow since then.
I started on this novel, the beginning of July and during my busy but useless schedule, I’m glad that I was able to enjoy this book within a fortnight. As I said earlier, only now I recognize why destiny shied this book away from me all these years. I could have never understood this book, had I read it any earlier. This fact made me think a lot philosophically and that’s was made me write this long prelude to my endeavor with this book.
The novel is set in the backdrop of Kerala and its Syrian Christian Community centered in Kottayam in the 60s or 70s presumably. It narrates the life and times of a tragedy that happened in a typical Syrian Christian upper class family and how it turned around the life of twins. This feels like a tragedy from the outside but from the viewpoint of the young protagonists, but in fact to the reader this is a magical journey through the childhood. I could identify with the children and the narrative stands out, clearly because of the freshness and tenderness of the children's mind which Ms.Roy has captured quite brilliantly. Only on adult looking Peter Pan can craft a narrative as innocent as I saw in this book.
I believe that’s the strength of this book. It captures the small and minute details which often slip the adult eyes but are devastatingly large in the eyes of the children. It captures the small joys and happiness and doubts and assurances of the kid's life without delving deep into the abyss of examining the adult thought process.
A simple and powerful story 'of small things' told by the young at heart to an audience who is into 'large things' to be bothered in their reality.
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