Analogue God

“For who hath despised the day of small things?” God says that (Zechariah 4:10)

The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

Is this a coincidence?   Hard to believe that it is, but Roy’s novel of India and Zechariah’s prophecies in Ancient Israel don’t seem to have any obvious similarities.  Indeed, consider the context of that line for Zechariah:

Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you.

For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth.

(That is the King James Version by the way (though you probably instantly knew that)—I don’t normally read the KJV, but I like the way the question in the middle there is phrased.)

Roy’s God of Small Things is introduced in a dream described thus: “If he touched her he couldn’t talk to her, if her loved her he couldn’t leave, if he spoke he couldn’t listen, if he fought he couldn’t win.”  Yeah, I don’t know that that means either, and it isn’t clear the novel explains it.

Maybe there is no connection between Roy and Zechariah, but it seems weird that there isn’t.

All of which is a long way of saying that Roy’s novel is extremely good, but not because it provides an exegesis on the book of Zechariah.  (Though it is rather hard to believe Roy wasn't referencing Zechariah, so maybe I am missing something….I need to stop pondering this…really, I need to just stop…)

Small things (to start afresh).  Is there a moment in your life around which the whole of your life pivots?  A moment to which everything you did before inexorably led and everything after necessarily follows?  A moment that every small thing in your life was either a cause of or an effect of that single moment?  That is the thesis of Roy’s novel, and she does a marvelous job exploring it.  This really is a book worth reading—indeed, it is one of those books I am surprised I had not read before now.  But thanks to a former student who was shocked I hadn’t read it and thus bought me a copy to remedy this failing, I have now read it.  (Thanks, Maniza!)

The novel unfolds with the before and after circling around and around that central moment.  We only find that central moment in the last chapter.  And there is a very clever bit of plotting in the construction of the novel.  The nature of the central event is tipped off early, so there isn’t a big shock at the end if you are paying attention.  But, and this is the really impressive part, the event that I assumed would be the pivot point, the event I assumed would be the final chapter, was contained in the penultimate chapter.  The real central point, also not a surprise event, is only surprising because it comes at the very end—it is the moment to which the whole novel leads and follows.  And as soon as you see it, as soon as you realize that this event and not the one you thought it was is the real moment around which the whole novel circles, you say “of course.”   It is a marvelous feeling—here you are enjoying one book, watching it all unravel to get to the middle and then you discover that the middle you that you were uncovering isn’t the middle after all, that an event that you thought was just a precursor to the middle was in fact the middle.  All of life of all these characters all hinged on that one moment.  All of the decisions reaching back generations led to that moment and all the things that happened afterwards happened because of that one exact moment. 

So, great story, well written.  But, is it right?  Does your life have such a  pivot point?  And disturbingly(?), the pivot point may not actually be an event in which you participated or even witnessed.  Roy’s argument is that the pivot point may not even happen to you and may not even happened until after you are dead and yet your whole life was just leading to that pivot point.   

It is the idea of this pivot point in life that is intriguing me.  In Christian theology, all of human history has a pivot point at the Crucifixion of Christ.  But, what about your life or my life?  The reason this is so hard to decipher is that even if it exists, how would I know?  What if my pivot point comes at the age of 57 or 74?  What if it happened when I was 12?  In either case, would I know?  Indeed (terrifying thought, this) what if writing these reflections on Roy’s novel are the unique pivot point of my whole life—that this moment is unique because it is the sole moment in my life in which everything I have done up until now led to this exact moment and everything afterwards happens because of this moment? 

Here I have comfortably lived my life assuming that my life had a trajectory, that one thing followed another in a perfectly predestined fashion, but the inexorable nature of life never raised the possibility of a crucial moment in that life.  Every moment is crucial.  This is Eliot’s argument in Burnt Norton, by the way.  I guess I have lived my life assuming this is the case:

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.

If all time is eternally present

All time is unredeemable.

What might have been is an abstraction

Remaining a perpetual possibility

Only in a world of speculation.

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.

Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the rose-garden.

And in that reading, there is no unique pivot point  All time is unredeemable.

So, why does Roy’s hypothesis haunt me is much?  In the universe of Eliot (and me), every moment is sacred and inviolable.  But if every moment is sacred, then no moment is special.  In Roy’s novel, there is that one moment that is different.  And what troubles me is this:  if there was a moment that was special, shouldn’t I acknowledge it as such?  Obviously.  But, what if there were two special moments?  Well, then both should be thought of a sacred and special. Three moments?  The same.  Four?  Five?  And adding up, what if every moment is sacred?  What if ever single moment is a fixed point, eternally present and unredeemable.  Then should I be in awe at every moment in my life, holding onto the thing that makes this moment the moment of my life that everything has led to and everything will come from?  If I agree with Eliot (and I do) that every moment is The Moment, then why don’t I treat every moment as The Moment?

The test:  I just discovered there is a band named “The God of Small Things.”  They aren’t really good, but they aren’t really awful either.  A perfectly innocuous band (I know, I just listened to their entire repertoire on Spotify while writing this blog post (it isn’t a big repertoire) and not once did the music cause me to think This is really good or This is really horrid.  Here is a music video they have.  Should you watch it?  All time is unredeemable.  The whole rest of your life depends on whether you click that link or not.  Choose wisely.