How the childhood can effect a person

Rahel  Kochamma is one of the main characters in the book I read, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. The book tells the story of her and her twinbrother Estha. They had  a traumatic childhood and it effects them for the rest of their lives. The twins were separeted from each other when they are seven years old and next time they see each other after over twenty years.

Rahel’s childhood wasnt’ something every parent would wish for their children. Rahel and her brother Estha saw when their cousin Sophie Mol died drowning  at the age of nine, she was two only  years older than the twins. The incident had  a big  impact in Rahel, the honest, smart, introvereted girl. 

Estha is very important for her sister even they are separeted very early. When Rahel was child, when her memory had just begun, she always thought her and her brother as we. She owns memories she describes she don’t  have right to have. Even after many years after they were separeted, she has a memory of waking up one night giggling at Estha’s funny dream. So she could know for example  even of some not so nice things which have happened to her brother, for instance when Estha was sexually abused, even she hadn’t been there.

Rahel has never felt socially comfortable. She was an extremely polite child with no friends. She was blacklisted in one school, expelled from the next one. Later she went to architecture school but didn’t finnish it. She marries an American man and lives America until she comes back to Ayemenem to see her brother.

The incidents of Rahel’s cihldhood effect how she sees things and you might say that the shady intimacy at the reunion of Rahel and her brother is something that wouldn’t have happened without their tarumatic childhood.

Difficult word:

drift-ajelehtia

lean-tukea, nojata

illegitimate-kielletty

clatter-kolina

amorphous-epämääräinen

Story of an indian family

I read Arundhati Roys novel The God of small things. It is  published in 1997 and has won the Booker price same year.The book is a story about indian twins Estha and Rahel and their traumatic childhood and reunion after many years. The book describes the story of their family and their phases in the Indian society. The story mainly takes place in Ayemenem in Kerala, India from the childhood of the twins from late 60s to when they are in the age of 31 in the beginning of 90s. Roy self have spent her childhood in Ayemenem, which makes the places and people seem real. 

The book includes lots of  detailed portraying  and places and people are described proper.  Everything,  both things and actions are described with numerous adjectives.  “Once the quietness arrived, it stayed and spared in Estha. It reached out of his head and enfolded him in its swampy arms. It rocked him to the rhythm of an ancient, foetal heartbeat. It sent its stealthy, suckered, tentacles inching along the insides of his skull, hoovering the knolls and dells of his memory, dislodging old sentences, whisking the off the tip of his tongue. It stripped his thoughts  of the words that described them and left them pare and naked. Unspeakable. Numb.”

Because of the precise narration and difficult words Roy uses, the language is pretty hard to read. The story is also a bit hard to follow because the incidents aren’t  in a chronological order. I would give the book 4 stars out of 5 because Roy describes the story fascinatingly  but it’s reading is a bit challenging.

The God of  Small Things, Arundhati Roy, Flamingo 1997

Aberrant story about Indian family

This book, The God of Small Things, was published  in 1997. It’s written by famous indian women Arundhati Roy. And the book have won booker prize of the 1997.

The God of Small Things tells about life in India. It concentrate on a village named Kerala.The main characters are twins named Estha and Rahel and they have a kooky rapport. This book includes many characters; Pappachi and Mammachi, Chacko, Ammu, Baby Kochamma etc. The plot go forward building a story of Estha and Rahels life.

In my opinion this book is surprisingly good because I didn’t expect much from this book. Some words were abstruse and stroppy. Also it was quite hard to follow the plot because incidents went back in time. But still you can get a general idea what happens and who are who. This book makes me wanna read more books in English. I give this book 4 stars over 5 . The God of Small Things is close to ecxellent!

The man who met a woman

The character that I chose in The God of Small Things book hasn’t a big role in the book although he is the twins father. I chose Baba because he is mad and angry all the time and I didn’t like him at all. Baba has two kids, both of them are the books main character so it’s weird that the book don’t tell about him so much. Baba has a dad but he died before twins( Rahel and Estha).

Baba is well-built man who wears traditional clothes and old-fasioned spectacles. He looks clerk or so they say in the book. He is small and delightful-looking. ”- easy-going charm and juvenile but totally disarming sense of humour.” This is how the book tells about him.

Baba lived in Calcutta before he met Ammu. He was 25 years old and he had been an assistant manager of a tea estate over six years. When he met Ammu I think that he fell in love for a first sight because he propose Ammu five days later.  Soon they moved in Assam, where they bought their own house. And then Ammu was pregnant and she was waiting twins. Rapidly Baba turn out to be a drink addict and sooner or later Ammu saw how he act when he was drunk. Baba was violent and he hit her wife almost every day. I think that Baba was impulsive especially when he had drunk alcohol.

It was bad for Baba that Ammu left him. They divorced because Baba was so ferocious. Some habits that children’s have reminds Ammu what kind of people Baba was ” Ammu hated them blowing spit.bubbles. She said it reminded her of Baba. Their father.” Baba is so obstinate and smug. He was loosing hes job but then he tried to sell his wife to his boss. I pity him, he devastate his life because he was stupid and egotistical as the book says ” he never explained or apologized. He just giggled-”

You can feel his anger in the book. Sometimes his children’s call to mind that their father hit them. But all in all Baba felt sorry about that, because he sober up and stopped drinking(for a time). Baba remarried and got his job back. Later his son Estha move with him in Calcutta. Baba let his son to move back in Ayemenem when Estha is old enough.

Baba is a steamed lunatic but still he care about his children’s though he gave his children’s smoke his cigarettes.. It gives me a feeling that he really didn’t care about them at all.. He has a bit weird habit to indicate his love but I think that is a cultural difference.



Mindmap of Baba
Ten difficult words:

descendants – jälkeläinen

bourgeoisie – porvaristo

dictate – sanella

hatch – varjostaa

jolly – iloinen

swoop – syöksy

grizzled – harmaantunut

prearranged – sovittu

compassionate – armahtavainen

deprivation – riisto

Arundhati Roy. 1997. The God of Small Things.  London: Flamingo.