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A Reader posted a review at 2008-06-30 01:39:48.
(Language: English)
This reminded me vaguely of a cheaper version of Atonement. The cause-effect relationship is pretty similar, the intricacy was there… But there were huge differences in tactics that made this the lesser of the two. First of all, this thing had too many characters. We didn’t need to know about Baba or Father Mulligan or Kari Saipu or Rahel’s ex-husband or any number of these expository characters. They’re interesting, to be sure, but most of them don’t serve a function in the fruition of the book. That having been said, Roy knows how to build a character. Most of these people were incredibly vivid and lifelike. Baby Kochamma is impossibly evil. But I think Roy’s undoing is her tendency to overshoot herself, in both language and story. Her prose is beautiful, but sometimes she just pushes a little too far, turning richness of language into syrupy melodrama. And I personally found the entire last chapter with Ammu and Velutha to be completely unnecessary. The book should have stopped as the train pulled away. It’s like watching Revenge of the Sith and wishing like hell the movie would have rolled credits just as the Vader mask comes down on Anakin. And then there’s five more minutes of movie.
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