You have identified an incredibly important aspect of the
way in which this unforgettable novel is written. What is distinct about the narrative
style of Roy in this book is that she abandons a chronological narrative in favour of
extensive use of flashbacks and digressions as the story shifts from the present to the
past. The way in which these separate elements are woven together to tell the story of
the Kochamma family and unfold the tragedy that Estha and Rahel are still living under
is a mark of the excellence of this novel.
The first narrative time frame begins when
Estha and Rahel are children and their cousin, Sophie Mol, is just about to arrive. The
second beings after Estha has been "re-returned" by his father after a gap of twenty
three years. Note what the novel says about this gap:
Two weeks later, Estha was Returned. Ammu was
made to send him back to their father, who had by then resigned his lonely tea estate
job in Assam and moved to Calcutta to work for a company that made carbon black. He had
remarried, stopped drinking (more or less), and suffered only occasional
relapses.
Estha and Rahel hadn't seen each other
since.
It is this gap of 23
years that Roy crosses at will with her narrative, uniting the present with the past and
showing how the childhood experiences of Estha and Rahel still bear a massive mark on
their lives in the future.
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