The story takes place in Kerala, which is in the southernmost part of India. This book was written by slowly giving information to the reader, but making them wait for the whole story. It starts out by talking about Sophie Mol's funeral. She is a cousin of the central family in the story. By starting the book this way, it is obvious that it will be a sad story. There are many characters in this story. So far, it has give a small amount of information refering to each character. Ammu is probably the main character. She has twins a boy Estha and a girl Rahel. She is divorced from her alcoholic husband. Ammu's brother is Chacko. He is a fat man who feels that woman are not really worth anything. These two call their parents Mammachi and Pappachi. I don't think that there are any other siblings, but I am not sure. There is also Baby Kochamma. I think that she is a sister of one of the parents. Background information was also given about her. She was one a nun, but then her father got her out of it. She went to school in America and got fat. Then she went back to India when something bad happened.
Mammachi and Pappachi owned a company called Paradise Pickles and Preserves, which was not called this until Chacko took over. Their have already been beatings and horrible treatments of women in this novel. I think it is a trend in most eastern hemisphere cultures. Chacko stopped it from happening to his mother, but he is not much better.
There was a section about when Ammu, Chacko, Baby, Rahel and Estha were going to see The Sound of Music. On the way there, a man was sitting on a sign of some sort naked. I think it said he didn't have any arms. This was very odd to me. It just didn't seem to flow with how the book had started. I think that this was used to show the differences in Indian society because while one family is going to a movie other people are on the streets like this. There is a lot about communism and marxism, which are pretty much the same. They even had a section about Chacko forcing people to refer to him as 'comrade' like we did in class.
I like Ammu. She is sarcastic and slightly a feminist. She wants better rights for women, which could make her a feminist, but what woman doesn't want that? Velutha is also introduced with more information. It said earlier something about him being in jail and Ammu killing him, but I don't think that it meant literally. He is an untouchable. The central family is known as touchables. Velutha works as a carpenter. He disappeared for a while and is now back. His father thinks that he is doing something bad. I think that he is having an affair with Ammu.
The way that this is written is very strange. The sentences are sometimes fragments, and the capitalization is very strange. Also, the novel jumps around time periods. It does give a lot of background information, which I think will be helpful later.
So far, I like the book, but I am not sure that I have gotten to the main storyline yet. I think that so far I have just had background information, and I am excited see what will happen next.
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I remember reading the 1st chapter and realizing that this isn't your average type of plot line. We are thrust into the funeral of Sophie Mol, but we don't know what happened or why she died.
Treatment of women in this culture are very low, and the Caste system while outlawed by the Brits and the Indian Republic still continue to exist.
I agree that her writing style is very strange. That said. sometimes she comes across with unreal descriptiveness in her writing style. Lines like explaining about the sour taste of metal that railings inside the street car might have.
It's a different kind of novel.
Mr. Farrell
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