The book is named Shantaram and I have burned through its 936 pages in about two weeks. If you don't know the book. it is based on the author's Gregory David Roberts own true story of his escaped from a Maximum Security Prison in Australia, and subsequent travel to India to find refuge among slums dwellers and the Mafia of Bombay.
In Mumbai (Bombay), as a fugitive, with a new identity "Lin" (Roberts), as protagonist lives out an extensional quest for survival, freedom, and redemption so profound, that to set such experiences into an active first person narrative, and place it within the context of the authors own intense confessions as well as an esoteric yet rigorous philosophical cosmology constitutes one of the rarest forms of literary expression. Yet Robert's managed the feat while running a medical clinic in one of the cities darkest slums and inhabiting the Bombay underworld, associating with the most amazing cast of anti-heroes and hoods. The sacred and profane populate this novel; gangsters, gurus, thieves, standing Babas, Sufis, sinners, saints, European ex-pats are all among the odd assortment of humanity who find a home within.
The plot follows Lin through a series of most fantastic adventures and incredible experiences only possible in India, or ecstatic realizations among unspeakable deprivations. This is a book about crime and its more unspeakable punishment, of despair and hope, love and betrayal. His friendships with India and its villagers, slum dwellers, sages, and his trusty companion Prabu are deeply poignant, joyful and heart wrenching. The author's deep affection for the people of the subcontinent breaths through his every word.
The story is also at times even absurdly comic ( ex. A Bombay drug store cowboy decked out in black leather and a stetson, who speaks Danish, a Mumbai police hunt for a giant bear). The author even takes on roles in the Bollywood film industry, and in one of the more breath taking narrations he follows his fellow gangsters to fight in the mountains of Afghanistan as a Mujahadeen warrior (impersonating a CIA agent).
As all experiences in India the events unfold in a wholly paradoxical matter full of intrigue and surprises where nothing turns out exactly as one would expect, for in a world of Maya nothing is really as it seems. The author has the rare gift to show the "the authentic face of India"; as Janus as that maybe. A country which if you travel as a tourist seems to offer you a different profile at almost every turn and encounter. In Shantaram one experiences India across the entire spectrum of its extremes, her dark brutal secret of hopelessness and wrath, as well as the fathomless compassion which sparks the flame of hope to burn eternally within her multitudes of beings.
This is no where as well illustrated then in his description of the head of one of Bombay mafia family, Khader Kahn, a gangster and guru like figure with a spiritual philosophy based on modern physics and a view not unlike Teilhard De Chardin which concerns the evolution of the universe heading toward a state of maximum complexity which he terms: "God."
The writing is so genuine, passionate and sincere, in its description of the tumultuous life of India's largest city and all the eccentric characters who fill it, that this in itself is worth the price of the ticket to Shantaram. No doubt, Shantaram along with some of the recent plethora of great English novels from subcontinent writers has helped to establish Mumbai and her characters as one of the worlds great literary settings of the early 21st century.
The story is finally about the author's spiritual transformation and search for redemption in part as he pursues his underworld Anima, the beautiful and mysterious emerald eyed Karla, a Swiss/American also on the run, who devours novels by such authors as Mann, Schiller, Flaubert and Virgina Woolf, in their original language, and spews forth her own experiences of the fringes, in koan like musings while wandering stealthily among the teeming streets of Mumbai to facilitate the trade of guns, money, identity, and espionage.
The author managed to contemplate the narrative while he was serving two years of a seven year sentence in an Australian maximum security prison while in solitary confinement.
Anyway this is great novel, I was hooked from the book's first sentence and literally could not put it down. Here is how the first sentence reads:
"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant while I was chained to the wall and being tortured. I realized, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled , bloody helplessness, I was still free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them."
(Amazingly after Roberts recorded the events in this book, he ran underworld missions in Sri Lanka, Zaire, Singapore, Italy, and was finally recaptured in Germany where he was fronting as singer for a Rock band. He was then sent back to Australia to serve out his remaining prison sentence.
[...]
( It appears that soon the story will be heading to the cinema as Johnny Depp has bought the rights and he is conspiring with Russell Crowe to make the film. Thankfully Roberts is working on the screenplay.)
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Shantaram: A Novel
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Huge romping, evolving, penetrating your soul story!
I picked this book up on a sale table at a book store after passing it twice. It had a beautiful cover of an old, Indian-looking, stone building along a shore. Bombay. But the size was intimidating to this slow reader, 933 pages! I asked the woman on staff with whom I always have good conversations if she read it. She highly recommended it. Then, later I decided to get the audio and e-book, because the book was so heavy. So glad I did; first, because the book would be so uncomfortable to try to hold for any length of time, and second, because the man who did the narration was absolutely enchanting, imitating all the accents and voices unbelievably well. Now for the story. It isn't the type of fiction I normally read. It's rough, it's sometimes violent, and it isn't for people who get squeamish easily. Nope, you need your big panties on for this one, and you will be rewarded for your courage. The best stories are ones where the protagonist evolves. These are ones I eat up, can't wait to get back to. This is one of those The author used his experiences to form the basis of the main character's life. Roberts was a thief and an addict in Australia when he was arrested and sentenced to nineteen years in prison. He made a daring and infamous daytime escape from prison and smuggled into Bombay to build a life of contrasts, from operating a free clinic in the slums to working for one of the biggest mafias in the city. The writing is arguably some of the finest I've ever read. His descriptions are magical. Pat Conroy said it is "a work of extraordinary art, a thing of exceptional beauty." I'm sad that I've finished it, it was with me for such a long time. I'll miss his character, Lin, and all those he grew to love. Of course, I, and I am sure other readers, are left wondering, what parts were true? What parts did he make up? But there is a sequel! The Mountain Shadow. I'll let you know how that one is too!
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2024
Top reviews from other countries
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- TanmayReviewed in India on August 26, 2018
An experience of living, not a book, its a full life
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GoanerReviewed in Germany on October 17, 2021
Ein Klassiker - uneingeschränkte Leseempfehlung
