As the book has won the Booker in 1997, it brings the book very close to our generation. The problems of the 50?s and the 60?s like caste system, poverty and illiteracy are still prevalent but the story is told in a time and setting that is more familiar to us. Stylistically, it is very flowery book with lots of metaphors. There are similarities to Midnight Children.
The book is filled with beautiful descriptions of people, places, and situations. The language is poetic but yet it is not a poem. It is interesting to note that the author uses all the poetic instruments like metaphors, similes, and the poetic license in her book but yet her book is not a poem. So, is it right to call the poetic instruments really poetic? The first page of GOST is a testament to this. There is a general feeling of over use of the poetic instruments in Roy’s book. ’’Slanting silver ropes slammed into the earth’’ It took me a while to understand that she is talking about the rain here. The narrative is full of instances like this where Roy gives very beautiful description but it is lost in the cacophony of so many that sometimes the narrative jars you. One asks whether she wanted to write a ballad or experiment with narrative techniques? The richness of the text gets to be exasperating and I wished she would simply put it plain words. Plainly, I feel that she has overused the poetic instruments at her disposal.
The plot structure so far reminds me very much of Midnight Children. Though the narrative itself is in third person, while it is in first person in MC, the two share a common plot structure. The story in GOST starts with the night Rahel comes back and then, it waeaves back and forth in time telling us the stories of Rahel’s ancestors, parents and relatives. Then it turns to the childhood of Rahel and Estha, all the while against the backdrop of the present. This structure is also found in Rushdie’s narrative in MC. The story of the aunt?s jealousy and hate for her nephew and niece, the pickle factory, the male chauvinism, statements about what history is, and so many other things are common to the two texts. But one is magic realism and the other is not. Whether or not Roy is influenced by Rushdie is a debatable topic but there is evidence from the text that she just might be influenced by Rushdie.
It is very interesting perspective George gave me that GOST is an autobiographical text. Many similarities between her and the character Rahel she creates point to this. Roy’s mother was married to a Bengali Hindu, whom she later left, and also Roy’s mother was involved with a property dispute with her siblings because the law said that the daughter cannot inherit her father’s property.
GOST is a delightful novel to read because of its language usage but then I feel that it is more of a ballad than a novel. The narrative is not contemporary and not unique either. It attracts the reader to it and engrosses him/her in its enchanting ropes of letters.