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Times
4 hours ago
- Times
This debut novel got a £500,000 advance — it was worth every penny
Remember the exuberance of 1997? Tony Blair came to power, sweeping away nearly two decades of Conservative rule. It was the year the nation lost its collective mind over the death of Diana. The Twin Towers had yet to fall and there was a freshness in the air, a sense that we could shrug off our past as a stuffy nation of colonial stiff upper lips. Britain was rebranding itself, embracing multiculturalism, and we needed the new voices and stories to match. Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things could have been precision-tooled for those cultural conditions. In many ways it's a miracle it was ever published let alone became a global hit. Roy was an architect and a screenwriter living in Delhi and had never written a novel before. She was about as far off the British publishing world's radar as it is possible to be, but her tragicomic narrative about a dysfunctional south Indian family worked its magic on everyone who set eyes on it. The young Indian publisher Pankaj Mishra (now an essayist) sent it to the literary agent David Godwin who hotfooted it to Delhi within four days of receiving the manuscript to sign up Roy. He won her an advance of £500,000 — at the time, the biggest paid to a first-time novelist. The book was published simultaneously in 16 languages when Roy was 35. It won the 1997 Booker prize and went on to sell six million copies. Based on Roy's childhood, The God of Small Things centres on the twins Estha and Rahel growing up in a Syrian Christian community in Ayemenem, a small town in Kerala. Their rebellious mother, Ammu, has already disgraced the family by marrying a Hindu and then getting divorced. The twins' position in society and in their family is precarious and it's further threatened by their cousin Sophie Mol, who is half-English, sand-coloured and thus 'loved from the beginning'. • What we're reading this week — by the Times books team The book achieves that extraordinary feat that all great books do: it makes a highly specific situation — in this case, a particular, eccentric family in a town riven by race, gender, class and caste conflict — feel familiar to all readers around the world. It helps that we see it through the eyes of the children. Estha and Rahel don't understand why they should not love Velutha, the 'untouchable' who carves them tiny animals and shows them the unconditional affection that is missing from their family. They don't understand why he is marching with the Naxalite-Maoist rebels, or why that matters to their factory-owning uncle Chacko. Their dawning knowledge of Ayemenem's rigid social structures mirrors our own. They come to understand, as we do, the brutal punishment meted out to those who dare to challenge the rules about 'who should be loved. And how. And how much.' But none of this would come alive without Roy's playful use of language, her warmth and her humour. She said she worked for years on the book's complex structure but the language was natural to her and that's how it feels to the reader. OK, not everyone was a fan — the Sunday Times critic Peter Kemp raged against the 'typographical tweeness' of her capitalisations and elisions (the Orangedrink Lemondrink man, a pet Bar Nowl). But reading the book now is to be struck anew by the freshness and vibrancy of her voice. That the book is not now an established classic may be partly because Roy turned out to be — if I may borrow her capitalisation habit — a Very Disobedient Female. She faced obscenity charges in India over her depiction of inter-caste sex and she didn't want to write more warm and funny novels about children. She spent the next 20 years using her position to campaign against dam projects, nationalism, capitalism and the Indian government's policy on Kashmir. I admire her for that but it divided opinion in a way that her fiction never did. • Read more book reviews and interviews — and see what's top of the Sunday Times Bestsellers List Roy's wonderful memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me is due out next month and I hope it brings many more readers back to The God of Small Things. To quote the book, capitals and all: 'The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again … in the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn't. And yet you want to know again.' The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy is published on Sep 4. To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Netflix fans react to Wednesday season 2
Wednesday fans all had the same complaint as season two finally hits Netflix with an epic Rotten Tomatoes score. The second series of the supernatural mystery comedy, created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, hit the streaming service on August 6. 'Only 4 episodes? That's all?' 'Why just 4 episodes I ain't watching till it's complete.' 'watching or waiting for all of the episodes on Sep 3?' 'Only 4 episodes.' 'I've been looking forward to #Wednesday and rewatched season 1 in readiness… But I'm fed up with release schedules that split series in half… So, it looks like I'm waiting until September :( Time to get #appletv!' 'The new season of #Wednesday is split in two parts? Seriously #Netflix. This is the worst business model. One episode a week or whole season at once. Those are the only acceptable options. You'll get [expletive] numbers for this cause people will wait to binge. Not good enough.' 'Netflix, have mercy… stop torturing us like this… two parts for Wednesday S2 and an ending like that? really?' 'The new season of Wednesday is not even complete? @Netflix you are a joke.' But despite that, many have shared their rave reviews on review website Rotten Tomatoes. Those who have watched the show have given it a whopping 78% on the site. Others have taken to X to share their positive thoughts, with one saying: 'Wednesday season 2 was really [expletive] good and honestly already better than season 1 but 4 weeks for a batch you gotta be squeezing my [expletive] Netflix.' 'Wednesday s2 is good.' 'It's WEDNESDAY. Finally series two of WEDNESDAY is available on Netflix.' 'Finally getting to watch the long-awaited Season 2.' The much-loved series follows the life of Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega). It originally hit our screens on Netflix back in November 2022. In January 2023, a second installment was promised but fans have waited two more years for the new series. Joining Jenna Ortega is Joanna Lumley and Steve Buscemi for the new season, as well as returning cast member Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Times
5 hours ago
- Times
Walt Disney raises profit outlook as it cuts reliance on legacy TV
A stronger performance from its theme parks and streaming business prompted Walt Disney to raise its annual profit outlook, as the entertainment group reduces its reliance on the legacy TV division. Disney said on Wednesday that it would add 10 million Disney+ and Hulu subscribers in the current quarter, most of them from an expanded partnership with the cable operator Charter. In the third quarter, Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions increased by 2.6 million to 183 million, powering a 6 per cent increase in revenue at the direct-to-consumer business. The unit posted an operating profit of $346 million, compared with a loss of $19 million a year ago. The company said it expected to generate $1.3 billion of operating profit from its direct-to-consumer streaming business in the fiscal year that ends in September, up from an earlier forecast of $1 billion. Disney's parks division reported a 13 per cent gain in operating profit to $2.5 billion for the three months to June 28. Profit at domestic parks rose 22 per cent, despite new competition in Orlando, Florida, from Universal's Epic Universe, which opened in late May, as visitors increased their spending. Walt Disney World in Orlando posted record revenue for the quarter, Hugh Johnston, Disney's chief financial officer, said. Disney expects operating income from the division that includes theme parks, cruise ships and consumer products to increase by 8 per cent in the fiscal year, which is at the top end of previous guidance. Operating profit in the entertainment division in the third quarter fell 15 per cent to $1 billion. Disney attributed the drop to lower results from traditional television networks and the strong performance of the film Inside Out 2 a year earlier. At the sports unit, operating profit rose 29 per cent to $1 billion. Domestic ESPN profit fell 3 per cent, partly from higher programming and production costs, including rate increases for NBA games and college sports. Overall quarterly net profit more than doubled to $5.9 billion, from $2.8 billion a year earlier, after revenues increased 2 per cent year-on-year to $23.7 billion. The media and entertainment company has been making a push into streaming, with investments in its sports franchise ESPN and Hulu, as traditional TV viewing declines. It is also expanding its popular theme parks and cruise lines. 'With ambitious plans ahead for all our businesses, we're not done building, and we are excited for Disney's future,' Bob Iger, chief executive, said. Disney said it had entered two major deals with the National Football League and WWE as it readies its $29.99-per-month ESPN streaming service that will give viewers access to sporting events, including the NFL and National Basketball Association. The WWE deal will bring exclusive rights to big wrestling events, including WrestleMania and Royal Rumble to the streaming service, set to launch on August 21. Iger said the launch of the ESPN app and the NFL deal, along with a coming integration of Hulu into Disney+, would create 'a truly differentiated streaming proposition'. The NFL will take a 10 per cent equity stake in Disney's ESPN sports network. The deal values were not disclosed. Shares of Disney fell $3.96, or 3.4 per cent, to $114.36 in morning trading in New York.
