Questo romanzo mi ha lasciata molto perplessa e non so bene quale sia la mia opinione finale: non posso dire che mi abbia fatto schifo, ma non mi ha nemmeno soddisfatta del tutto. Durante la lettura, avevo la sensazione di star leggendo qualcosa pericolosamente in bilico tra la buona letteratura e la trashata commerciale. Non si sbilancia mai, né in una direzione né nell’altra, ma ha finito per lasciarmi insoddisfatta.

Mi è abbastanza chiaro il motivo che ha portato Il dio delle piccole cose a diventare un clamoroso caso letterario mondiale, come si dichiara orgogliosamente in copertina: gli amori impossibili ostacolati dalle regole della società vanno sempre forti. Credo che Roy volesse scrivere un romanzo popolare in grado di avvicinare a tematiche complesse come la problematicità del sistema delle caste indiane, le conseguenze nefaste del colonialismo, il sessismo e la discriminazione anche a persone che normalmente non si interessano granché a queste tematiche, oppure pensano che non le riguardino.

Sicuramente c’è riuscita, ma penso che la riflessione potesse essere gestita in maniera migliore, perché ogni tematica è trattata sul filo di lana della superficialità: non posso dire che Roy abbia l’abbia buttata in caciara, ma mi ha lasciato la sgradevole sensazione che ogni tematica fosse lì solo per contestualizzare i drammi in corso e non per dare loro spessore e significato. Insomma, Roy non è mai riuscita a convincermi che non stesse solo scrivendo un romance da spiaggia, nonostante le belle pagine molto poetiche e alcuni passaggi ispirati.

A tutto questo si somma il fatto che la storia viene piuttosto tirata per le lunghe: si capisce abbastanza presto dove andremo a parare, ma nonostante questo l’autrice fa finta che nessunǝ lo sappia: così ci sorbiamo pagine e pagine di non detti di cui non si capisce bene il senso. Soprattutto alla luce del fatto che le ultime pagine, che raccontano in maniera organica cosa è accaduto per far deragliare definitivamente le vite dei membri di questa famiglia, sono tra le più belle e significative del romanzo. Non so se meritino la fatica per arrivarci, però. ( )

This book has some incredible writing. There are so many sad events in the book and Roy makes you feel part of them completely and describes things with just the right amount of detail to make them real. There are a lot of characters, but it's never hard to keep track and each one is given enough detail to make them real and believable and wish you knew more without ever being frustrated about a lack of information. Parts of it moved me to tears. It's a really powerful novel and I'm absolutely going to look into more of her writing.

So you read that and think "well why not 5 stars". This is going to sound ridiculous, but it's that there were too many sad things. The entire book was sad things. Even the few moments that can be described as not sad are more pitiful. Someone has a seemingly happy relationship but really they only think so because they have had no experience and they split up. That sort of thing is the happiest it gets. The non stop barrage of sadness is too much sometimes and I had to put it down often. There is no hope anywhere (although maybe a spark in the ending). This is exacerbated because you find out very early on the basics of the most horrible events that define the story - the rest is sort of just working towards it through flashbacks and filling in the gaps. This means that you KNOW nothing happy is going to happen and the sense of inevitability is hard to deal with. Some decisions characters make just seem pointlessly horrible but you know they have to make them for things to happen as they should. Admittedly, only a few feel unjustified but you just want them to do something nice for once. The child molestation scene was so, so horrible although I feel she wrote it about the best you ever could. The ending is a bit abrupt and although it makes sense it was a bit frustrating.

It seems silly that most of the above was like "book was sad, didn't like" but it casts a long shadow over everything else because it seems EVERYTHING is done to make things worse. It's like a long novel of decay. It just feels a bit ridiculous a few times and occasionally it feels against character and yeah it's a bit pathetic and I fully acknowledge that but it's how I felt.

One thing I'll note that bothered me, although it isn't strictly about the book - the edition I read came with an ending where Roy says something about "acknowledging that everybody is both victim and perpetrator". Putting aside my problems with that statement for now, she uses as an example a certain scene near the end with Rahel and Estha in a police station. In this scene they are 7 and they're manipulated by a policeman and a family member. Yet somehow Roy seems to consider them just as responsible as others (I'd be curious if she considers probably the biggest victim in the book also a perpetrator in some way). To me, this is absolutely bizarre and gross and made me see the scene in a different light and really be not OK with it at all. It comes across suddenly as a nasty attempt to introduce false equivalences - everybody's guilty, even people who cannot possibly understand what's going on without the author literally saying "oh yeah they understood". A disappointing bitter after-taste to a great, if incredibly sad, book. ( )

Another prie winning book that I did not like nor expect to like. some well written thoughts saved it for me, but I'm glad it's over. Yes, both castes and colonization bring bad consequences, as does incest. ( )

Reading this was unlike any reading experience I've ever had.

The story isn't told so much as it is poured into a basin, wholly but slowly, so as not to produce any waves or splashes. And I didn't so much "enjoy reading" as I was compelled to keep diving in and around and through it, even though I knew for sure I was not heading for anything remotely resembling a happy ending at the bottom of the bowl.

Glorious writing. Beautifully complex structure. Tragic, Disturbing, Human-Love Story. ( )

1997 overseas edition