The God of Small Things (Arudhati Roy)

Paradise Pickles and Preserves

I can't keep track of the names. Thus far, the story feels simultaneously broken and beautiful.

Pappachi's Moth

A viable dia-able age. I love the slips of poetry. I love this little chapter, for some reason. It reminds me of Rememories, this splintering of sections. Beautiful.

Abhilash Talkies

Boy. Poor boy. So sad. The story begins to twist, but the words themselves have yet to become ugly.

God's Own Country

"While father's played sublimated sexual games with their nubile teenaged daughters" (121) Wait...what?

Cochin Kangaroos

I like that nostrils are never held, they are always clamped.

I'm not sure what to put here; my questions are of plot, not substance.

Wisdom Exercise Notebooks

Q498673. How much did Arundhati Roy think to arrive at that number?

Welcome Home, Our Sophie Mol

"Bright, like cheerful, pink condoms" (163) which character's mind has gone there?

The Love Laws. These are important, somehow.

This is making more and less sense, although the everywhere time seems almost to be vanishing.

Mrs. Pillai, Mrs. Eapen, Mrs. Raja Gopalan

I can't tell at all when this last scene is ocurring. Oh, there, now I can, but it is difficult. I thought the teachers said this would get easier!

The River in the Boat

Children discover the "blissful delights of underwater farting" (193)

The God of Small Things

I want the future now, beyond Sophie, beyond Ammu. I want Rahel to make Estha speak.

Kochu Thomban

Rahel is in a temple. Rahel is a bad christian.

The Pessimist and the Optimist

"A Wake" (226) for the prettypretty deadgirl.

This story would be just as sad if it was only Margaret, the woman surrounded by death.

This is why discussion of Sophie Mol's perspective is odd. Because Sophie Mol is dead.

Work is Struggle

For a story which blatantly acknowledges that large portions of it have already happened, this sure is suspenseful.

The Crossing

I love miniature so-lovely-they're-almost-poems interludes.

A Few Hours Later

I still haven't quite got the bit about Velutha's leaf making the monsoons come on time.

What a sad, sad death. There and gone. Lonely. Gone.

Cochin Harbor Terminus

"I love you I love you" (281) Baby is still young Kochamma.

The History House

I honestly don't think that I want more explanation on the taking of Velutha.

I can't read the description of BrokenVelutha. It makes me sick. Oh oh. Oh.

Saving Ammu

Oh Baby. Oh Esthappen. Oh Ammu, so sad.

The Madras Mail

I want to blame Baby for everything, but is that fair? If you let her persuade you, are you guilty?

"The Love Laws" (311) all that is broken now makes me think of only Lolita.

This time lets you see the broken in one thousand places. I hurt.

The Cost of Living

Now that is how a sex scene is meant to be written. Go Roy!

I'm not sure what the "Yes, Margaret"...oh wait. It returns.

Oh, oh, oh! So lovely. Glad to end there in place of a death. Love lives on because time is irregular, again and again and always like spaghetti in the sky. Ammu, Baby what have you done? Where did you go? A broken world of pieces that fit. How did Roy make you, in order or apart, in snatches or a fit? You were born. Love-in-Tokyo.

I am Lost

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End notes.

In short, I know that this book was good, because it reduced me to complete and utter incomprehensibility.

Another Day, More Work

I've almost (almost almost) got the patent finished up. Just have to rewrite the claims and do a final figure description. I'm rather looking forward to getting it all submitted.

I also finished Summer Reading Book #3, also known as Tess of the Deubervilles. This adds on with 1984 and Lolita, and now I've just got to get through God of Small Things. At the moment, my biggest topic linking the three books is something regarding perceptions of purity and attractiveness, because, for some reason, all big books seem to come back to sex.

Today, I did some (but not enough) cleaning, some (but not enough) talking, and a fairly reasonable quantity of work, although, like I said, I have the figure description to write up, and I think I might try to make a bit of a dent in the summer chemistry work, and I'd like to do another one of my RSI blog posts (I must remember ALL!!!!!)

Anyways, that's today's update. Sorry it's brief, but I'm pouring my energy into far too many things at the moment.

Oh, right, last night I hung out with Nyx, and then Dad got mad at me for how much crap I still had in his office. Tonight, Gretchen is coming over. Tomorrow, Kathrya and Nia are coming over. I am in no way listing these to increase the number of tags held by particular individuals. No sirree, I wouldn't dream of it.

Homecoming in August

I'm back, finally.

I'm working frantically, as usual. Missing flashdrive, non-backed up due to lack of internet access.

FML.

Although that seems wrong to say, since it's my own damn fault that the thing is gone. And, as evidenced by the previous post, worse things have happened.

Regardless, after a long break, I'm here again. I have 16 more RSI posts planned, because I don't want to forget all of the little funny things that happened while I was there, so I'm sorry that my regular posts are going to be somewhat brief for the time being.

Here I am, working again, hoping to manage to squeeze out enough free time in the next week to go visit Rube (who hasn't called or texted or anything in 24 hours and oh, wait, he texted yesterday afternoon, just kidding. Too bad I spaced on responding).

And now, time for breakfast.

Goodbye Annie

I'm using your real name here because you are dead.

That still sounds wrong.

How can a seven year old bundle of energy, always yelling and dancing in circles around our grandmother's kitchen, possibly be gone? How can a little bit of blood let loose in the brain destroy so much so quickly? How can there be death that is so utterly unpreventable, so entirely beyond our control?

There is nothing I can do to make it better, nothing I can do to staunch the wound. The family bleeds.

The tiny fractions call endlessly, searching for reprieve, searching for news. I know nothing.

The funeral is on Saturday. It is a funeral for a girl still living.

How can her glassy eyes be truly real?