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Shantaram: A Novel Kindle Edition
Now a major television series from Apple TV+ starring Charlie Hunnam!
“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 a wall and being tortured.”
An escaped convict with a false passport, Lin flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of Bombay, where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter the city’s hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.
As a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city’s poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals. The keys to unlock the mysteries and intrigues that bind Lin are held by two people. The first is Khader Khan: mafia godfather, criminal-philosopher-saint, and mentor to Lin in the underworld of the Golden City. The second is Karla: elusive, dangerous, and beautiful, whose passions are driven by secrets that torment her and yet give her a terrible power.
Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujaheddin guerrillas—this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach, and a passionate love for India at its heart.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
He arrives in Bombay with little money, an assumed name, false papers, an untellable past, and no plans for the future. Fortunately, he meets Prabaker right away, a sweet, smiling man who is a street guide. He takes to Lin immediately, eventually introducing him to his home village, where they end up living for six months. When they return to Bombay, they take up residence in a sprawling illegal slum of 25,000 people and Linbaba becomes the resident "doctor." With a prison knowledge of first aid and whatever medicines he can cadge from doing trades with the local Mafia, he sets up a practice and is regarded as heaven-sent by these poor people who have nothing but illness, rat bites, dysentery, and anemia. He also meets Karla, an enigmatic Swiss-American woman, with whom he falls in love. Theirs is a complicated relationship, and Karlas connections are murky from the outset.
Roberts is not reluctant to wax poetic; in fact, some of his prose is downright embarrassing. Throughought the novel, however, all 944 pages of it, every single sentence rings true. He is a tough guy with a tender heart, one capable of what is judged criminal behavior, but a basically decent, intelligent man who would never intentionally hurt anyone, especially anyone he knew. He is a magnet for trouble, a soldier of fortune, a picaresque hero: the rascal who lives by his wits in a corrupt society. His story is irresistible. Stay tuned for the prequel and the sequel. --Valerie Ryan
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
- Pat Conroy
"Shantaram has provided me with the richest reading experience to date and I don't expect anybody to unseat its all-round performance for a long time. It is seductive, powerful, complex, and blessed with a perfect voice. Like a voodoo ghost snatcher, Gregory David Roberts has captured the spirits of the likes of Henri Charrière, Rohinton Mistry, Tom Wolfe, and Mario Vargas Llosa, fused them with his own unique magic, and built the most gripping monument in print. The land of the god Ganesh has unchained the elephant, and with the monster running amok, I tremble for the brave soul dreaming of writing a novel about India. Gregory David Roberts is a suitable giant, a dazzling guru, and a genius in full."
- Moses Isegawa, author of Abyssinian Chronicles and Snakepit
"Shantaram is, quite simply, the 1001 Arabian Nights of the new century. Anyone who loves to read has been looking for this book all their reading life. Anyone who walks away from Shantaram untouched is either heartless or dead or both. I haven't had such a wonderful time in years."
- Jonathan Carroll, author of White Apples
"Shantaram is dazzling. More importantly, it offers a lesson...that those we incarcerate are human beings. They deserve to be treated with dignity. Some of them, after all, may be exceptional. Some may even possess genius."
- Ayelet Waldman, author of Murder Plays House
About the Author
From The Washington Post
Shantaram, a blatantly autobiographical first novel by Gregory David Roberts, an Australian author who himself fled to India after escaping from prison, sets out to tell the story of Lin's transformation from desperate, bitter man on the run to, if not a man of peace, then a man of understanding, a man at peace with his life and the mistakes he has made.
The book, told in 933 readable pages, follows him from a remote Indian village in monsoon season to the Afghan mountains in winter, but mostly it takes place in Bombay: in a slum where he founds a medical clinic, in a prison where he is beaten and tortured, in meetings of a branch of the India mafia led by Abdel Khader Khan, an Afghan who becomes a father figure and employer for the fugitive.
The book is full of vibrant characters: Prabaker, the Indian with the winning smile who is Lin's first guide to the city; Karla, a Swiss woman also fleeing a troubled past, with whom Lin becomes infatuated. But Bombay itself is Shantaram's strongest personality. Lin's love of the mafia don and the green-eyed Karla feels suspect to me, but his -- and Roberts's -- love of India and the people who live there is unmistakable and a joy to read about.
Roberts's writing is never understated. He sounds sometimes like Raymond Chandler, with that noir mix of toughness, sentiment and bravado. This style threatens to tip over into the overwrought, and sometimes it does. The sections about Karla and romantic love are the weakest in the book. He describes a kiss in this way: "Our lips met like waves that crest and merge the whirl of storming seas." Are you sure?
But the exuberance of his prose is refreshing in this age of finely crafted fiction, and the insight he shows into men's weaker and stronger traits can be moving. The novel's prison sections are riveting and convincing; when Roberts writes about what it feels like to be knifed, I believe him. And then Prabaker shows up before his wedding night, worried that as a "short and small" man, he won't be a good lover. Lin tells him "that love makes men big, and hate makes them small. I told him that my little friend was one of the biggest men I ever met because there wasn't any hate in him. I said that the better I knew him, the bigger he got." I don't mind a dose of sentimentality if the sentiment it reflects feels true.
The novel loses its drive when Lin leaves India to fight in "Khader's war," as the Afghan attempts to deliver weapons and other aid to the insurgency against the Soviets in the late 1980s. Here, Roberts ties up the various strands of this story, revealing the invisible net that has connected all of Lin's experiences, from the slum to Karla to his work for Khader. But his tying-up seems more important to the plot than it does to the novel, and the book lags in these pages.
Lin's transformation, which gives the novel its name, is problematic as well. Toward the end, he offers a well-paying job in Khader's illegal enterprise to two friends from the slum. "I'd never anticipated the saddened and offended expressions that closed their smiles," Roberts writes. "Was I so far out of touch with the thoughts and feelings of decent men?" Yes, but he doesn't seem to catch on. It's hard to believe the character who displays so much wisdom is still working for the mafia at the end, going off to fight another part of Khader's war, after an alleged realization that the violent struggle for power is always wrong.
Despite this failing, Shantaram displays an intelligence about human nature and a warmth for the human race that continue to be alluring long after the plot loses steam. Early on Lin talks about a peculiar Indian custom that he calls "amiable abduction." "For months, in the slum, I'd succumbed to the vague and mysterious invitations of friends to accompany them to unspecified places, for unknown purposes. You come, people said with smiling urgency, never feeling the need to tell me where we were going, or why. You come now!" Shantaram itself is an amiable abduction. Roberts brings us through Bombay's slums and opium houses, its prostitution dens and ex-pat bars, saying, You come now. And we follow.
Reviewed by Carole Burns
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Shantaram
By Gregory David RobertsSt. Martin's Griffin
Copyright ©2005 Gregory David RobertsAll right reserved.
ISBN: 9780312330538
Chapter One
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 a wall and being tortured. I realised, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn't sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it's all you've got, that freedom is a universe of possibility. And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.In my case, it's a long story, and a crowded one. I was a revolutionary who lost his ideals in heroin, a philosopher who lost his integrity in crime, and a poet who lost his soul in a maximum-security prison. When I escaped from that prison, over the front wall, between two gun-towers, I became my country's most wanted man. Luck ran with me and flew with me across the world to India, where I joined the Bombay mafia. I worked as a gunrunner, a smuggler, and a counterfeiter. I was chained on three continents, beaten, stabbed, and starved. I went to war. I ran into the enemy guns. And I survived, while other men around me died. They were better men than I am, most of them: better men whose lives were crunched up in mistakes, and thrown away by the wrong second of someone else's hate, or love, or indifference. And I buried them, too many of those men, and grieved their stories and their lives into my own.
But my story doesn't begin with them, or with the mafia: it goes back to that first day in Bombay. Fate put me in the game there. Luck dealt the cards that led me to Karla Saaranen. And I started to play it out, that hand, from the first moment I looked into her green eyes. So it begins, this story, like everything else-with a woman, and a city, and a little bit of luck.
The first thing I noticed about Bombay, on that first day, was the smell of the different air. I could smell it before I saw or heard anything of India, even as I walked along the umbilical corridor that connected the plane to the airport. I was excited and delighted by it, in that First Bombay minute, escaped from prison and new to the wide world, but I didn't and couldn't recognise it. I know now that it's the sweet, sweating smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it's the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It's the smell of gods, demons, empires, and civilisations in resurrection and decay. It's the blue skin-smell of the sea, no matter where you are in the Island City, and the blood-metal smell of machines. It smells of the stir and sleep and waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. It smells of heartbreak, and the struggle to live, and of the crucial failures and loves that produce our courage. It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches, and mosques, and of a hundred bazaars devoted exclusively to perfumes, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers. Karla once called it the worst good smell in the world, and she was right, of course, in that way she had of being right about things. But whenever I return to Bombay, now, it's my first sense of the city-that smell, above all things-that welcomes me and tells me I've come home.
The next thing I noticed was the heat. I stood in airport queues, not five minutes from the conditioned air of the plane, and my clothes clung to sudden sweat. My heart thumped under the command of the new climate. Each breath was an angry little victory. I came to know that it never stops, the jungle sweat, because the heat that makes it, night and day, is a wet heat. The choking humidity makes amphibians of us all, in Bombay, breathing water in air; you learn to live with it, and you learn to like it, or you leave.
Then there were the people. Assamese, Jats, and Punjabis; people from Rajasthan, Bengal, and Tamil Nadu; from Pushkar, Cochin, and Konarak; warrior caste, Brahmin, and untouchable; Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Parsee, Jain, Animist; fair skin and dark, green eyes and golden brown and black; every different face and form of that extravagant variety, that incomparable beauty, India.
All the Bombay millions, and then one more. The two best friends of the smuggler are the mule and the camel. Mules carry contraband across a border control for a smuggler. Camels are unsuspecting tourists who help the smuggler to get across the border. To camouflage themselves, when using false passports and identification papers, smugglers insinuate themselves into the company of fellow travellers-camels, who'll carry them safely and unobtrusively through airport or border controls without realising it.
I didn't know all that then. I learned the smuggling arts much later, years later. On that first trip to India I was just working on instinct, and the only commodity I was smuggling was my self, my fragile and hunted freedom. I was using a false New Zealand passport, with my photograph substituted in it for the original. I'd done the work myself, and it wasn't a perfect job. I was sure it would pass a routine examination, but I knew that if suspicions were aroused, and someone checked with the New Zealand High Commission, it would be exposed as a forgery fairly quickly. On the journey to India from Auckland, I'd roamed the plane in search of the right group of New Zealanders. I found a small party of students who were making their second trip to the sub-continent. Urging them to share their experience and travellers' tips with me, I fostered a slender acquaintance with them that brought us to the airport controls together. The various Indian officials assumed that I was travelling with that relaxed and guileless group, and gave me no more than a cursory check.
I pushed through alone to the slap and sting of sunlight outside the airport, intoxicated with the exhilaration of escape: another wall scaled, another border crossed, another day and night to run and hide. I'd escaped from prison almost two years before, but the fact of the fugitive life is that you have to keep on escaping, every day and every night. And while not completely free, never completely free, there was hope and fearful excitement in the new: a new passport, a new country, and new lines of excited dread on my young face, under the grey eyes. I stood there on the trample street, beneath the baked blue bowl of Bombay sky, and my heart was as clean and hungry for promises as a monsoon morning in the gardens of Malabar.
'Sir! Sir!' a voice called from behind me.
A hand grabbed at my arm. I stopped. I tensed every fighting muscle, and bit down on the fear. Don't run. Don't panic. I turned.
A small man stood before me, dressed in a grimy brown uniform, and carrying my guitar. More than small, he was a tiny man, a dwarf, with a large head, and the startled innocence of Down syndrome in his features. He thrust the guitar at me.
'Your music, sir. You are losing your music, isn't it?'
It was my guitar. I realised at once that I must've forgotten it near the baggage carousel. I couldn't guess how the little man had known that it belonged to me. When I smiled my relief and surprise, the man grinned back at me with that perfect sincerity we fear and call simple-minded. He passed the guitar to me, and I noticed that his hands were webbed like the feet of a wading bird. I pulled a few notes from my pocket and offered them to him, but he backed away awkwardly on his thick legs.
'Not money. We are here to help it, sir. Welcome in India,' he said, and trotted away into the forest of bodies on the path.
I bought a ticket to the city with the Veterans' Bus Service, manned by ex-servicemen from the Indian army. I watched as my backpack and travel bag were lifted to the top of a bus, and dumped onto a pile of luggage with precise and nonchalant violence, and decided to keep the guitar in my hands. I took a place on the bench seat at the back of the bus, and was joined there by two long-haired travellers. The bus filled quickly with a mix of Indians and foreigners, most of them young, and travelling as inexpensively as possible.
When the bus was close to full, the driver turned in his seat, scowled at us menacingly, spat a jet of vivid red betel juice through the open doorway, and announced our imminent departure.
`Thik hain, challo!'
The engine roared, gears meshed with a growl and thunk, and we sped off at alarming speed through crowds of porters and pedestrians who limped, sprang, or side-stepped out of the way with only millimetres to spare. Our conductor, riding on the bottom step of the bus, cursed them with artful animosity.
The journey from the airport to the city began on a wide, modern motorway, lined with shrubs and trees. It was much like the neat, pragmatic landscape that surrounded the international airport in my home city, Melbourne. The familiarity lulled me into a complacency that was so profoundly shattered, at the first narrowing of the road, that the contrast and its effect seemed calculated. For the first sight of the slums, as the many lanes of the motorway became one, and the trees disappeared, clutched at my heart with talons of shame.
Like brown and black dunes, the acres of slums rolled away from the roadside, and met the horizon with dirty heat-haze mirages. The miserable shelters were patched together from rags, scraps of plastic and paper, reed mats, and bamboo sticks. They slumped together, attached one to another, and with narrow lanes winding between them. Nothing in the enormous sprawl of it rose much above the height of a man.
It seemed impossible that a modern airport, full of prosperous and purposeful travellers, was only kilometres away from those crushed and cindered dreams. My first impression was that some catastrophe had taken place, and that the slums were refugee camps for the shambling survivors. I learned, months later, that they were survivors, of course, those slum-dwellers: the catastrophes that had driven them to the slums from their villages were poverty, famine, and bloodshed. And five thousand new survivors arrived in the city every week, week after week, year after year.
As the kilometres wound past, as the hundreds of people in those slums became thousands, and tens of thousands, my spirit writhed. I felt defiled by my own health and the money in my pockets. If you feel it at all, it's a lacerating guilt, that first confrontation with the wretched of the earth. I'd robbed banks, and dealt drugs, and I'd been beaten by prison warders until my bones broke. I'd been stabbed, and I'd stabbed men in return. I'd escaped from a hard prison full of hard men, the hard way-over the front wall. Still, that first encounter with the ragged misery of the slum, heartbreak all the way to the horizon, cut into my eyes. For a time, I ran onto the knives.
Then the smoulders of shame and guilt flamed into anger, became fist-tightening rage at the unfairness of it: What kind of a government, I thought, what kind of a system allows suffering like this?
But the slums went on, kilometre after kilometre, relieved only by the awful contrast of the thriving businesses and crumbling, moss-covered apartment buildings of the comparatively affluent. The slums went on, and their sheer ubiquity wore down my foreigner's pieties. A kind of wonder possessed me. I began to look beyond the immensity of the slum societies, and to see the people who lived within them. A woman stooped to brush forward the black satin psalm of her hair. Another bathed her children with water from a copper dish. A man led three goats with red ribbons tied to the collars at their throats. Another man shaved himself at a cracked mirror. Children played everywhere. Men carried water in buckets. Men made repairs to one of the huts. And everywhere that I looked, people smiled and laughed.
The bus stopped in a stutter of traffic, and a man emerged from one of the huts near my window. He was a foreigner, as pale-skinned as any of the new arrivals on the bus, and dressed only in a wrap-around sheet of hibiscus-patterned cotton. He stretched, yawned, and scratched unself-consciously at his naked belly. There was a definitive, bovine placidity in his face and posture. I found myself envying that contentment, and the smiles of greeting he drew from a group of people who walked past him to the road.
The bus jerked into motion once more, and I lost sight of the man. But that image of him changed everything in my attitude to the slums. Seeing him there, a man as alien to the place as I was, let me picture myself in that world. What had seemed unimaginably strange and remote from my experience suddenly became possible, and comprehensible, and, finally, fascinating.
I looked at the people, then, and I saw how busy they were-how much industry and energy described their lives. Occasional sudden glimpses inside the huts revealed the astonishing cleanliness of that poverty: the spotless floors, and glistening metal pots in neat, tapering towers. And then, last, what should've been first, I saw how beautiful they were: the women wrapped in crimson, blue, and gold; the women walking barefoot through the tangled shabbiness of the slum with patient, ethereal grace; the white-toothed, almond-eyed handsomeness of the men; and the affectionate camaraderie of the fine-limbed children, older ones playing with younger ones, many of them supporting baby brothers and sisters on their slender hips. And half an hour after the bus ride began, I smiled for the first time.
'It ain't pretty,' the young man beside me said, looking at the scene beyond the window. He was Canadian, the maple leaf patch on his jacket declared: tall and heavy-set, with pale eyes, and shoulder-length brown hair. His companion looked like a shorter, more compact version of himself; they even wore identical stonewashed jeans, sandals, and soft, calico jackets.
'Come again?'
'This your first time?' he asked in reply. I nodded. 'I thought so. Don't worry. From here on, it gets a little better. Not so many slums and all. But it ain't good anywheres in Bombay. This here is the crummiest city in India, y'can take my word.'
'You got that right,' the shorter man agreed.
'But from here on in, you got a couple nice temples and some big British buildings that are okay-stone lions and brass street lights and like that. But this ain't India. The real India is up near the Himalayas, at Manali, or at the holy city of Varanasi, or down the coast, at Kerala. You gotta get outta the city to fred the real India.'
'Where are you guys headed?'
'We're going to stay at an ashram,' his friend announced. 'It's run by the Rajneeshis, at Poona. It's the best ashram in the country.'
Continues...
Excerpted from Shantaramby Gregory David Roberts Copyright ©2005 by Gregory David Roberts. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- ASIN : B002U5HKZ6
- Publisher : St. Martin's Press; First edition (October 13, 2004)
- Publication date : October 13, 2004
- Language : English
- File size : 2.8 MB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 946 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #39,681 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #34 in Action & Adventure Literary Fiction
- #132 in Crime Action Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #161 in Crime Action & Adventure
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author

Gregory David Roberts (GDR), is an author, songwriter, composer and artist. He’s best known for his best-selling novel Shantaram, which has sold over 7 million copies and was hailed “a masterpiece” by critics. It has been translated into 44 languages and is sold in over 116 countries.
A TV series based on Shantaram is due to air on Apple TV+ in October 2022; starring Charlie Hunnam as the lead.
The follow-up novel, The Mountain Shadow was released in 2015.
In 2021, GDR published The Spiritual Path, which takes us on a gripping personal journey of wonder and insight into science, belief, faith and devotion, where Roberts describes the step-by-step path, he followed in search of spiritual connection.
GDR released his debut album Love&Faith in 2020, co-produced by GDR and Dale “Dizzle” Virgo (Drake/ Rihanna/ Kendrick Lamar).
Expect the unexpected from this creative maverick as GDR continues to expand his music repertoire, write and create art.
www.gregorydavidroberts.com
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Customers find the book engaging and thought-provoking. They praise the writing quality as beautiful, genuine, and passionate. The book provides an insightful view of India and its cultures, with well-written descriptions of places, landscapes, and geography. Readers find the book inspiring and motivating, illuminating experiences and life lessons. They appreciate the interesting and colorful characters.
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Customers find the book well-written and engaging. They appreciate the author's talent and find the story complex yet captivating.
"...Anyway this is great novel, I was hooked from the book's first sentence and literally could not put it down...." Read more
"...Lin is enchanted with her green eyes and beautiful hair and lovely clothing but perhaps most of all he is curious about her mysterious history...." Read more
"...reading the first two parts of the book, I found it not only beautiful in its words and the poetry within the authors prose but also inspiring...." Read more
"...This story has it all --intrigue, corruption, misery, humor, joy, pain and love. The writing is outstanding...." Read more
Customers find the book engaging from the beginning. They appreciate the insightful stories and life lessons from the author. The book is described as epic yet intimate, with humorous and shocking moments. Readers value the author's exploration of human nature and the mystery of people.
"...The plot follows Lin through a series of most fantastic adventures and incredible experiences only possible in India, or ecstatic realizations among..." Read more
"...Page 58. There are many funny and shocking stories in the book, including a description of how the locals in Bombay treat a person who is..." Read more
"...The poetic prose in this book deepens whenever he talks about any of his loves; his love for Karla, his love for his good friend and brother Prabaker..." Read more
"Shantaram, is at least in part an autobiographical novel, the first for Gregory David Roberts, an Australian prison escapee, and at one time..." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's writing quality. They find the prose workmanlike and descriptive, with poetic language even for horrific details. The text is beautiful and fresh, with phrases and insights on life that beg to be read. Readers describe the book as a relatively easy read with great descriptions of living in India.
"...The writing is so genuine, passionate and sincere, in its description of the tumultuous life of India's largest city and all the eccentric..." Read more
"...book, I found it not only beautiful in its words and the poetry within the authors prose but also inspiring...." Read more
"...The writing is outstanding...." Read more
"...The genuine sense of empathy and understanding extends beyond the boundaries of fiction, evoking raw emotions and prompting self-reflection...." Read more
Customers enjoy the engaging description of India. They appreciate the cultural immersion, vivid descriptions of the city of Mumbai, and insights into the underworld. The book provides a perspective on a country with many cultures, languages, food, music, and entertainment. It also offers different viewpoints about life and other countries.
"...through a series of most fantastic adventures and incredible experiences only possible in India, or ecstatic realizations among unspeakable..." Read more
"...Yet Leopold's is a different kind of place, because it attracts people from all walks of life, Greeks, Germans, Italians, Franch, American, Indian,..." Read more
"...This book definitely had a major effect on me, the smart and intellectual conversations between “Lin” and “Khader Khan” came to me at precisely the..." Read more
"...The vibrant and vivid descriptions of the city of Mumbai, its bustling markets, and the diverse characters that inhabit its streets breathe life..." Read more
Customers find the book inspiring and motivating. They appreciate the insights and understanding of the human spirit. The book keeps readers interested with its vivid descriptions of adventures and redemptive truths.
"...The sacred and profane populate this novel; gangsters, gurus, thieves, standing Babas, Sufis, sinners, saints, European ex-pats are all among the..." Read more
"...It was one of the most exhilarating, romantic, and illuminating experiences in my life. Shantaram is a huge book at 933 pages...." Read more
"...I had already decided that it is a life-changing inspiring and motivating book, until I reached the next parts where my feelings towards the book, “..." Read more
"...The genuine sense of empathy and understanding extends beyond the boundaries of fiction, evoking raw emotions and prompting self-reflection...." Read more
Customers enjoy the interesting and colorful characters in the book. They find the cast large and growing throughout the story. The characters jump off the page and make you feel immersed in India.
"...however, once you start reading it you will definitely be transfixed by the characters, the language and the thought provoking and inspiring..." Read more
"...The book is full of colorful characters: Prabaker, the Indian street guide who takes a liking to Lin...." Read more
"...of the city of Mumbai, its bustling markets, and the diverse characters that inhabit its streets breathe life into every scene...." Read more
"...novels that spins a whole series of subplots into one, where characters grow and change, and in which lots of life lessons are taught...." Read more
Customers enjoy the humor and find the book entertaining, memorable, and engaging. They say it makes them laugh out loud and ponder the universe. The story has thrills, action, mystery, romance, and wisdom.
"...It was one of the most exhilarating, romantic, and illuminating experiences in my life. Shantaram is a huge book at 933 pages...." Read more
"...I guess that’s what makes good art; the way it fills you up with volatile and perplexed feelings, and usually that is the reason why I would love a..." Read more
"...This story has it all --intrigue, corruption, misery, humor, joy, pain and love. The writing is outstanding...." Read more
"...moments of heart-pounding action, tender introspection, and edge-of-your-seat suspense...." Read more
Customers have different views on the book's length. Some find it engaging and say it's the biggest book they've ever read. Others feel it's too long and drawn-out, with the war period being too long and drawn out. The size of the book is intimidating for some readers.
"...Too big - it would take me months to finish that. But, that's one thing about my Kindle. You don't realize how big some books are...." Read more
"...Shantaram is a huge book at 933 pages. I enjoyed 95% of it...." Read more
"...to psychologically deal with the author is exhausting and the content is crazy long with very mixed quality...." Read more
"...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..." Read more
Reviews with images
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Huge romping, evolving, penetrating your soul story!
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2006The 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.)
- Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2024Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
By Michael Hooper
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts is an epic story about one man’s struggle for freedom, friendship, adventure, love, camaraderie, peace and redemption.
The book is about a man who escapes a prison in Australia and moves to Bombay, where he reinvents himself. He calls himself Lin, which is the name on his fake passport.
In Bombay, he falls into a crowd of expatriates and slum dwellers. One of the first people he meets is Prabakar, a runner/salesman, who meets tourists at train stations, and brings them to hotels and restaurants and takes a cut from the proprietors. He also helps them exchange money, and score hashish. Prabakar takes a liking to Lin and recruits him into his business as a runner helping tourists. Prabaker calls him Linbaba.
I can relate to this job because I worked as a runner helping tourists find hotel rooms in Athens, Greece, when I was a young man.
Prabakar introduces Lin to his mother, who gives him a new name Shantaram, which means man of peace. Although he is not afraid to fight for his freedom, it seems that Lin is struggling for peace and redemption. He had been a heroin addict in Australia, where he lost his wife and child in a divorce. He was arrested for burglary and armed robbery, put in jail but he escapes over the wall and travels to Bombay.
In Bombay, he falls in love with the city, the first thing he notices is its smell, "its sweet sweating smell of hope" and its "sour stifled smell of greed."
One of my favorite places in the book is Leopold’s, a coffee shop bar where he and his friends meet on a regular basis to talk about politics and business and gossip. There he meets people like Karla and Didier Levy, Vickram and Ulla.
His friend Prabakar invites him to live in the slum with him and his family. There he sees great need for medical care, and he starts a free medical clinic. Needing antibiotics and other medical supplies he makes a connection with the lepers of Bombay, who somehow acquire these medical supplies and sell them to him at a discount. He is not a medical doctor, but they call him a doctor. He’s actually trained in ambulatory care He helps people get through many struggles, cuts, bruising, inflections and an outbreak of cholera.
Love is an abiding theme in this book, there is brotherly love, the love of friends and camaraderie, and the love of a father, or a father figure and romantic love.
He falls in love with Karla, who is a very mysterious person with a past in Europe and America. She speaks multiple languages and blends in beautifully into the Bombay lifestyle. Lin is enchanted with her green eyes and beautiful hair and lovely clothing but perhaps most of all he is curious about her mysterious history. His love for Karla is complex taking on various forms -- from friendship to making love to her on a beach under moonlight. He loves their ability to talk for hours and connect.
This book is one part James Michener and one part Ernest Hemingway and another part uniquely Australian.
It captures the pure Wonderlust of Australians. I’ve met so many Australians, who have traveled the world, they’ve been everywhere and done all kinds of different things. The author Gregory David Roberts wrote this book so well because he lived it. He actually did lose his wife and child, while addicted to heroin and getting busted for armed robbery and ending up in jail in Australia. He broke out of jail and went to Bombay to start his life all over again.
One of the most powerful man in Bombay is Abdel Khader Khan, a poet, philosopher and lord of gang of people who work in the black market trades, false passport industry, the gold trade, and the money exchange trade.
Lin works for Khader Khan, who wants him to learn everything about his business.The book goes into detail on how his goondas make money in these trades.
Abdel Kader Khan believes there are various levels of evil depending on the sin. Some sins are worse than others. Lin is really amazed at the man’s commanding presence and ability to generate extreme loyalty. While working in the false passport trade with two specialists, Lin acquires for himself about five passports. When someone’s visa is out of order, they could fix that with a specialty stamp.
Lin goes to great links for Khader Khan.
Another fascinating character in the book is Didier Levy, a 35 year old French Jew, who is a wonderful gossip talk head, who spends a lot of time at Leopold‘s, drinking alcohol and talking with friends, and watching business transact all around them, and getting a cut here and there from some of this business.
He talks about the hashish trade and the local gangsters.
And he talks about Karla. He says she has the power to make men shine like the stars, or crush them to dust.
Karla and Didier once lived together for about a year in Bombay sharing a crazy fractured little apartment. Page 58.
There are many funny and shocking stories in the book, including a description of how the locals in Bombay treat a person who is at fault for a car accident. The locals actually drag the driver out of the car and beat him up. There's also an endearing story about a beloved bear who gets locked up in prison. His caretakers stay in prison with him, so he is not lonely.
Perhaps my favorite theme in the book is camaraderie among friends, especially when they gather at Leopold’s. I believe every person needs a group of friends. It’s tough being alone in this world, indeed it's even tougher when you are in a foreign country and you don't know anybody.
There is some evidence that a person will live longer if they have regular contact with people. I go to a local coffee two or three times a week to visit with my friends. My comrades there are very special to me.
Yet Leopold's is a different kind of place, because it attracts people from all walks of life, Greeks, Germans, Italians, Franch, American, Indian, and Iranians, and Afghans and Arabs and Africans all gathering at this place. There’s nothing quite like it in Topeka, but when I was in Barcelona in 1990 I fell into a crowd of expatriates. I was walking along Las Ramblas, enjoying the sights of people and places along this famous boardwalk. I saw a group of young men led by a tall, gregarious man. He said hello to me, and I said hello back and he asked if I were English, I said America. He asked, "Do you get high?" and I said, "yes," and he said "follow me." We ended at a coffee shop in a Square just off Las Ramblas, where we drank beer and smoked spliff’s. Perhaps my favorite birthday was when I announced that in five minutes, I would be 27 years old. Everybody started singing, happy birthday to me and sharing drinks and joints. We stayed up all night partying and I ended up sleeping on the beach with my comrade Eamon strumming his guitar. It was one of the most exhilarating, romantic, and illuminating experiences in my life.
Shantaram is a huge book at 933 pages. I enjoyed 95% of it. There is some warlord gang fighting that occurs toward the end of the book and this seems to drag on for a while but all in all, I enjoyed the book very much
Shantaram is on Apple TV. The 12 part miniseries is fantastic, but unfortunately was discontinued. I believe Gregory David Roberts was involved in writing the script. In some ways, the book is much better with more detail about life in India.
There is a great deal of charity in the soul of Linbaba, he is always trying to support his friends, and the poor people who live in the slums.
I think the spirit of Linbaba is a man who loves people, who cares about the suffering in the world. Shantaram is an appropriate name for this evolving man of the world.
Top reviews from other countries
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Nelson UetaReviewed in Brazil on October 21, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars …
Ótimo livro
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Alicia C.Reviewed in Mexico on July 16, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Gran narración, es vivir India
Me gusta cada página que leo
- T. YoshizawaReviewed in Belgium on January 30, 2025
5.0 out of 5 stars highly recommended
It's a very long story (900+ pages), but it's engaging enough for me to keep going (there're books that I put it down and stop reading, but not this one). A lot of people appear in this story, but they're well described lika a real human, and the way places, atmosphere, emotions are described feels genuine enough to make it feel like I'm also at the same place and experiencing the same events/emotions. It was a bit sad when the story finally ended.
I highly recommend this book. Some people say this is life-changing. I won't go that far, but I'd say you won't regret the time and effort to read through this.
- PimpimReviewed in the United Kingdom on January 25, 2025
5.0 out of 5 stars learn about India
Sometimes hard reading sometimes a bit too much in description, but so worth every page turning took me a long time to read this book, but I’m so glad that I did. I have learnt so much about India and Indians and how they live some funny bits. some very sad bits and some are very horrific. That’s excellent excellent book
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Nicola ChildReviewed in France on October 12, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Merci
Merci pour votre service,tout Bon.