Dear Bloggers, I would like to talk about a quote on page 170, "littleangels were beach-colored and wore bell-bottoms. Little demons were mudbrown in Airport-Fairy frocks with fore-head bumps that might turn into horns. With Fountains in Love-in-Tokyos. And backwards-reading habits." For those of you who are far ahead of this page and have already forgotten the context I will help by saying that Sophie Mol has just arrived at the Ayemenem house and is being greeted by the blind Mammachi and the Hobbitish Kochu Maria, who of course refers to her as a little angel. Maybe I have become repetitive or if not me maybe I am only repeating, but I am fed up with these love laws. And the emphasis on race in this book. Maybe it justified, and I certainly agree that the concept of love laws is the most ridiculous dehumanizing thing I have ever heard of, yet I believe now Ms. Roy is beginning to lose my sympathy for the whole racial part of the book. I acknowledge it is part of the style, which the book is written in. Countless repetitions of phrases and concepts mulled over and digested by both the characters and the readers. Yet in this particular quote I begin to find her unbelievably frustrating. First of all, just because Sophie Mol is called a beautiful angel does not mean that Rahel is a demon. Second of all, can we all not agree that Rahel has been a little exasperating in the chapters before this? As if she's not a frustrating character in the first place. Perhpas that was the intent of Ms. Roy, and I speculate that it was. She is rather similar to Ammu. Who I also find to be an incredibly antagonizing character, however I do respect her spunk. Now to continue with the original topic of this post. Quite frankly as I get to know more of Margaret Kochamma, I can't help but feel that she is a rather unintelligent, insensitive, clueless white girl. Which is I'm sure how Arundhati meant her to be portrayed, but even that is a sense of racism. Sophie Mol is portrayed as a disinterested snobby lobster who sees little or no reason to be in India other than the reasons that Margaret has spoon fed her. Maybe I am the only one who feels that way, and maybe it is because as a white male I feel defensive and guilty about the atrocities committed in India, and all around the world. Because truly these problems are not unique to India. But earlier in this blog I talked about the repetition of the writing, I think that is a far more interesting topic and I plan on writing about it in another blog.