Reading The God of Small Things

I've just finished reading Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. A book critic on the back cover of the book mentions that Roy has a keen sense of her surroundings that seems heightened compared to the rest of us. They say it took her four years to write this book. I imagine she went to train stations to watch filthy beggars, observe banana trees, try and put to words the flight of grasshoppers in thick Kerala air, delve deep into her own self to conjure language-worthy adjectives to describe the strangeness that dwells in the deepest hearts of every human - from a silly cafe waitress in London to an untouchable caste-man working at a pickle factory in a communism wreaked India to an unexplainable bond between twins who according to Roy are strangers "met by chance before their lives began" in their mother's womb.

I imagine if I spent a four years of my life honestly digging into myself I would drain myself and find myself going mad. Putting my dreams, nightmares, 'afternoon-mares' on paper would again bring to the fore many unsettledness that I had put to rest inside the chest of forgetfulness.

The lake of my soul feels disturbed somewhere within, by something like a churning of a tablespoon. Very minor, very tablespoon-like, but very unavoidably present.

Like a hungering and dread for a potential storm, and a new sense of awareness of my human-ness and its deficiencies.