In his foreword to the Malayalam translation of Zero Degree, Paul Zacharia wrote, "It is like an open experimental laboratory. Amidst the smoke, noxious vapors, and beautiful imagery, I experienced a wondrous journey."[7]
Tarun Tejpal opines that Zero Degree is remarkable for its experimental voice and its varying and shifting tonalities.[8]
Anil Menon considers Zero Degree bold and ambitious. He posits that the ancient fascination with language and reality continues to burst through the crust in Charu Nivedita’s works.[9]
Noted translator Jason Grunebaum[10] considers Zero Degree wildly exciting and complains that Charu does not write in Hindi, so that he would translate Charu's works to English.[11]
Poet Vivek Narayanan[12] says about Zero Degree: "I think we should take Zero Degree not just as a playful, ironic “postmodern” novel but as a novel of oppositions and contradictions: a deeply autobiographical novel where the self has been scattered, an ironic pastiche novel that speaks to raw experience, a defiantly cosmopolitan novel than nonetheless pins a very particular kind of schizophrenic rage that perhaps—I could be wrong—any Tamilian will immediately recognise."[13][14]
Keeping with the numerological theme of Zero Degree, the only numbers expressed in either words or symbols are numerologically equivalent to nine (with the exception of two chapters). This Oulipian ban includes the very common word one (only in Tamil edition).
