arundati roy

8/7/2019 arundati roy

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Arundhati Roy--Biography

My mother says that

some of the incidents in

the book are based on

things that happened

when I was two years

old. I have no

recollection of them.But obviously, they

were trapped in some

part of my brain.


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Arundhati Roy

The God of Small Things

Pinchia Feng

NCTU


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Arundhati Roy-- childhood

born as Suzanna Arundhati Roy on11/24/1961

mother--Mary Roy (Christian)--a well-

known social activist, ran an informalschool (Corpus Chrisiti )

father (a Bengali Hindu tea planter)

uncle--George Issac (owned the Palat

Pickles--the slogan: Emperor in the

realm of taste)


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Arundhati Roy--childhood

feeling of insecurity because of the

broken marriage--on the edge of the

community (GSMp.60)

When I think back on all the things I

have done I think from a very early age,

I was determined to negotiate with the

world on my own. There were no

parents, no uncles, no aunts; I was

completely responsible for myself."


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Adult Life and Career

left home at 16 and lived in a squatterscolony in Delhi

The Delhi School of Architecture

marriage (Gerard Da Cunha)--divorced after4 years

a role inMassey Saab

The Banyan Tree--TV series screenplay--In Which Annie Gives It Those

Ones /Electric Moon

a critique ofBandit Queen


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Kerala and the Meenachil river


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Influence ofKerala

A lot of the atmosphere of A God of SmallThings is based on my experience of what it

was like to grow up in Kerala. Most

interestingly, it was the only place in the

world where religions coincide, there isChristianity, Hinduism, Marxism and Islam

and they all live together and rub each other

down. When I grew up it was the Marxismthat was very strong, it was like the

revolution was coming the next week.

To me, I couldnt think of a better location

for a book about human beings.


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The Rural Environment

I think the kind of landscape that you grewup in, it lives in you. I dont think its true

of people whove grown up in cities so

much, you may love building but I dontthink you can love it in the way that you

love a tree or a river or the colour of the

earth, its a different kind of love. Im not a

very well read person but I dont imagine

that that kind of gut love for the earth can

be replaced by the open landscape.


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The God of Small Things

Completed in May 1996

published in 4/4/1997 by

Random House

the Booker Price--Oct. 1997

(Indias 50th anniversary of

independence)--the first

non-expatriate Indian authorand the first Indian woman

to win the price


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Arundhati on Writing the Novel

inspiration--the image of this sky bluePlymouth stuck at the railroad crossing with

the twins inside and this Marxist procession

raging around it

so much of fiction is a way of seeing, of

making sense of the worldand you need a

key of how to begin to do that. This was

just a key. For me (the novel) was fiveyears of almost unchanging and mutating,

and growing a new skin. Its almost like a

part of me.


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Biology and Transgression

I have to say that my book is not

about history but biology and

transgression. And, in fact is that

YOU CAN NEVER UNDERSTAND

THE NATURE OF BRUTALITYUNTIL YOU SEE WHAT HAS BEEN

LOVED BEING SMASHED. And the

book deals with both things--it dealswith our ability to be brutal as well as

our ability to be so deeply intimate and

so deeply loving.


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The Title

To me the god of small things is theinversion of God. Gods a big thing and

Gods in control. The god of small

thingswhether its the way the childrensee things or whether its the insect life in

the book, or the fish or the stars--there is a

not accepting of what we think of as adult

boundaries. This small activity that goes onis the under life of the book, All sorts of

boundaries are transgressed upon.


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Its a story that examines things very

closely but also from a very, very

distant point, almost from geologicaltime and you look at it and see a

pattern there. A patternof how in

these small events and in these smalllives the world intrudes. And because

of this, because of people being

unprotectedthe world and the socialmachine intrudes into the smallest,

deepest core of their being and changes

their life.--a last minute title


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Characters

The Ipe family

Papachi (Benaan John)--Mammachi (Shoshamma)

Margaret--Checko Ammu (1942-73)--Baba

Sophie Mol Esthappen Yako (Estha) RachelBaby Kochamma (Navomi Ipe)

the Untouchables: Vellya Paapen Velutha Paapen

Comrade K. N. M. Pillai


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Language and Structure

Repetition I love, and used because it made me

feel safe. Repeated words and phrases have

rocking feeling, like a lullaby. They help take

away the shock of the plot.

...for me the book is not about what happenedbut about how what happened affected people.

in some way the structure of the book

ambushes the story. In the first chapter I moreor less tell you the story, but the novel ends in

the middle of the story.--p.32 Suddenly they

become the bleached bones of a story.


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Syrian Christian Community

less than 5% of Indians population

more than 20%-1/3 in Kerala are

Christians

the Syrian Church is one of the

oldest branches of Christianity--came to India with St. Thomas in

52 CE.


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Controversy England--derivative--about India

India--communist critique from E M S

Namboodiripad--Anybody who attacks

Communists anywhere in the world will be

welcomed by the captains of the industry ofbourgeois literature in the world. + sexual

anarchy

+ obscenity case--Sabu Thomas-- affront Indiantradition, culture, and morality; excites sexual

desires and lascivious thoughts; hurts the

Syrian Christian community


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Women in Kerala

Relative freedom for women in Kerala

assertive, energetic, courageous

women

instances of patriarchal oppression

How are the women being

characterized in the novel?

(Mammachi, Baby Kochamma, Ammu,

Rahel)


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Timeline 1969--communist march (p.62-69);

Sophie Mols visit, death, and funeral;

Ammu and Velutha; Veluthas death

1973--Ammus death (31), p.5 aviable die-able age

1992--the narrative present--Estha

(the quietness, re-Returned); Rahel(divorced, back for the States); Baby

Kochamma (satellite TV and diary)


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Children--Two-Egg Twins P.4-5 In those early amorphous years when

memory had only just begun, when life was full

ofBeginnings and no Ends, and everything was

Forever, Esthappen and Rahel thought of

themselves together as Me, and separately, asWe orUs. As though they were a rare breed of

Siamese twins, physically separate, but with

joint identities.--now she thinks of Esthaand Rahel as Them, because, separately, the two

of them are no longer what They were or

thought Theydbe.--p.81-82


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Chapter 2 (1)

time: 12/1969 (the day before SophieMols arrival)

place: Ayemenem-----Cochin

pop culture: The Sound of Music (1965);Elvis puff, Love-in-Tokyo p.37

language: p.37 Malayalam vs English

(PreNUNsea ayshun--example ofsmall transgression)/ cuff-link p.50

p.38 the Terror--p.74


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Chapter 2 (2) Ammu--life had been lived p.38-44 Unsafe

Edge (p.44)

The fate of the wretched man-less woman. (p.

44-5)

Paradise Pickles & Preserves

Mammachis pickles (and violin) vs

Pappachis moth (p.48)--colonized/ power and

knowledge

other (post)colonial issues: CCP and

Anglophile p.50-51


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History

The History House (p.51-54)

Chackos--an old house at night. (p.51)

childrens--Kari-Saipus house

--in 1990s: Toy Histories for rich tourists to play

in. Like the sheaves of rice in Josephs dream,like a press of eager natives petitioning an English

magistrate, the old houses had been arranged

around the History House in attitudes of deference.Heritage, the hotel was called. (p.120)

geological time: the Earth woman (p.52)

K

urtz and the Heart of Darkness


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Symbolic Language--questions

Rahels watch (p.37) frogs (p.42)

Chacko--airplanes and pickle baron (p.55-56)

reading backwards--Satan in their eyes (p.58)

ambulance (Sacred Heart Hospital) and wedding

party (p.58)

Murlidharans keys and cupboards, clutteredwith secret pleasure (p.61)


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Marxism in Kerala

The first Communist government in the

world was elected in Kerala in 1957, and

from then on it became a big power to

contend with. I think in '67 the

government returned to power after

having been dismissed by Nehru, and so

in '69 it was at its peak. And it was as if

revolution was really just around the

corner. + (GMSp.64-65)

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