What The God of Small Things Teaches Us About Priorities
[Photo: Anastasiya Romanova]
Here’s something you may not know about teaching literature: the books you choose will forever be with you, far more so than ones you’ve simply read. It’s like the difference between reading a play and being in one.
I am lucky to go through life with many such books at my side, like guiding spirits. Today, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy speaks to me.
Like an entire universe contained within a single atom, the sweep and reach of these 333 pages are bound within the five words on the cover. The book begs the question “Who are the gods, and who are the small things?” Relatedly, who decides, and what are the consequences?
The central irony put forth by Roy is that we have it all backwards. In the world of the novel, the aspects of life that are held up as sanctified – the gods – are in fact corrupt, petty, and flat out dangerous, while the common and the discarded – the small things – are beautiful, holy, and deserving of worship.
The gods running this world – the parents, police officers, clergy and governing caste in general – consistently fail to protect the small things, especially children, members of the dalit or “untouchables” community, the environment, the colonized.
There is a radical undercurrent throughout the book that the gods deserve to be toppled and the small things not only deserve to be elevated, but in fact require it for their sheer survival. The gods who build the luxury resorts care not for the non-human residents who bear the brunt, and so the small thing of the river becomes sickly polluted. The gods who run the family of the protagonists keep secrets, reinforce inequalities, and serve as bystanders as the lives of children are destroyed.
It begs the question: In our own world, what do we revere as a god and what do we diminish as small thing? And how is that going for us?
I find myself asking these questions in coaching sessions. Not as a critique, but as a genuine inquiry: What have you organized your life around that may not deserve the throne it's been given? And what have you been stepping over on the way to it?
