The New Canon: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The New Canon is a regular feature, contributed by Ted Gioia, focusing on great works of fiction published since 1985. These books represent the finest literature of the current era, and are gaining recognition as the new classics of our time. In this installment of The New Canon, Gioia looks at The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

How unfortunate that this crisp, multivalent novel is so often weighed down with that infelicitous label: post-colonial fiction. Whenever I heard that MLA-ish term, I instinctively conjure up the image of a British Beefeater in full regalia exiled to a closet at the rear of the stage. Here our post-colonialist listens on as scenes unfold, no longer playing a role in the story, but tainting it nonetheless by his unwieldy presence.

But The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy needs no yeoman of the guard to sharpen the pointedness of its narrative. Matters of caste, class and gender loom even larger here than the lingering aftertaste of imperialism, as do the four extreme possibilities of the human condition, as outlined by one of Roy’s characters. “Anything’s possible in human nature,” muses Chacko, a Rhodes Scholar who has become a struggling manufacturer of pickles and condiments: “Love, Madness, Hope, Infinite joy.”

Love—both found and lost, carnal and spiritual—drives almost every character in this book. In Roy’s words, the players on her stage build their own individual and collective tragedies by ignoring the “Love Laws” that “lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much.” And though her protagonists enjoy a small taste (in this book of small things) of Hope and Infinite joy, it is Madness that holds the upper hand. Crimes also play a part in The God of Small Things, and imagined crimes, but even more guilt and (perhaps the most terrible taskmaster of all) imagined guilt.

The cast is surprisingly large for such a small, intimate book. Roy introduces ten key characters in the first five pages—I found that I needed to lay down the novel and draw a family tree before I finished chapter one. I am happy to relate that she stops adding new names before we reach Gabriel García Márquez proportions. Even so, this book spans three generations and three continents, and sometimes moves with blinding speed across the miles and years.

Article Author: Ted Gioia

Ted Gioia is a writer and musician. He is the author of Delta Blues, The History of Jazz and, most recently, The Birth (and Death) of the Cool.

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