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Arundhati Roy. The God of Small Things. New York. Random House. 1997. xii + 321 pages. $23. ISBN 0-679-45731-3.
How does one write a novel that can fetch a $1 million advance? Arundhati Roy shows the way, as did Vikram Seth earlier. Roy's God of Small Things is a story of a large, sprawling Syrian Christian family living in a small village called Ayemenem in Kerala, the members of which are tossed from Ayemenem to England, then to America, Shillong, and Delhi and back to Ayemenem, badly battered, badly bruised. It is also a story of profane love between an untouchable and a respectable lady, as it is a story of painful childhood and broken marriages.
Bennan John Ipe, an entomologist in government service, retires as director in the Department of Entomology and returns to his village, where his wife makes pickles. Baby Kochamma, his sister, is sent to a convent school, where she has a crush on a priest called Father Mulligan and returns to the family with unrequited love. Chacko, Ipe's son, a Rhodes...