Whole systems of destruction lie in seed. Essayists worship their God because He is always right about the meaning of small things, even when one does not want Him to be right. Pemberton opened this small line wide to expose all the cruel and tacit assumptions of white racism in America. But essayists don't have the cachet of poets, or the pizzazz of novelists or playwrights. Before the stare goes blank.
People favor stories, and essays are an odd and abstract form.
The only purpose of writing is to bring readers to their knees, and essays rarely do that, which is where the God of small things comes in. He builds a story in the theme, and by so doing, He makes the essayist appreciate not only the greatness in the smallness, but the small thing itself. Essayists are ancient mariners. Only when one goes toward the small thing does one realize how big is the thing it contains, how it lies beyond one's capacity to grasp and control. These are the gifts of the God of small things.