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Description
Southern India 1969. Here, armed only with the invincible innocence of children, Rahel and Esthappen fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family: their lonely, lovely mother, who loves by night the same man her children adore by day...their blind... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis
Cast of Characters
- Rahel: Sister of Esthappen, his dizygotic twin
- Esthappen: Brother of Rahel, her dizygotic twin. AKA Estha
- Velutha: An untouchable
- Ammu: Mother of Esthappen and Rahel
- Baby Kochamma: Grandaunt of the twins. AKA Navomi Ipe
- Margaret Kochamma: English mother of Sophie Mol
- Sophie Mol: Deceased daughter of Chacko, cousin of Esthappen and Rahel.
- Chacko: Uncle of Esthappen and Rahel
- Mamachi: Blind grandmother of Estha and Rahel.
- Kochu Maria: She had short, thick forearms, fingers like cocktail sausages, and a broad fleshy nose with flared nostrils. Deep folds of skin connected her nose to either side of her chin, and separated that section of her face from the rest of it, like a snout. Her head was too large for her body. She looked like a bottled fetus that had escaped from its jar of formaldehyde in a Biology lab and unshriveled and thickened with age.
Memorable Quotes
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“Ammu looked at them. The Air was quiet except for the sound of Baby Kochamma's throbbing neckmole.”
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“Rahel never wrote to him. There are things that you can't do - like writing letters to a part of yourself. To your feet or hair. Or heart.”
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“It didn't matter that the story had begun, because kathakali discovered long ago that the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don't deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don't surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover's skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don't. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won't. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn't. And yet you want to know again.”
First Sentence
May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month.
Table of Contents
1. Paradise Pickles & Preserves
2. Pappachi's Moth
3. Big Man the Laltain, Small Man the Mombatti
4. Abhilash Talkies
5. God's Own Country
6. Cochin Kangaroos
7. Wisdom Exercise Notebooks
8. Welcome Home, Our Sophie Mol
9. Mrs. Pillai, Mrs. Eapen, Mrs. Rajagopalan
10. The River in the Boat
11. The God of Small Things
12. Kochu Thomban
13. The Pessimist and the Optimist
14. Work Is Struggle
15. The Crossing
16. A Few Hours Later
17. Cochin Harbor Terminus
18. The History House
19. Saving Ammu
20. The Madras Mail
21. The Cost of Living
Authors & Contributors
- Arundhati Roy (Author)
Awards
- Man Booker Prize (1997, winner)
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