SOURCE: "As the World Turns," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, June 1, 1997, p. 2.

[Eder is an American journalist and critic. In the following review, he commends Roy's evocative treatment of social upheaval and personal tragedy, but dislikes her narrative nonlinearity and experimentation with language.]

A decaying South Indian royalty, its wealth and hegemony in drastic decline, its princess caught in a scandalous affair with an Untouchable carpenter. Punishment, exile, death and the downfall and scattering of the regal line.

Royalty in this case consists of the proprietors of Paradise Pickles, the industrial mainstay of the small Kerala town of Ayemenem. Their tragedy, though, is played out as ornamented princely melodrama: a lush modern fictional equivalent of classical Kathakali theater.

Arundhati Roy, a young Indian writer, has devised a novel of poignancy and considerable sweep, along with some serious weaknesses. Among the appealing elements are a wit that is...