Shantaram: A Novel
The epic, million-copy selling novel of a fugitive's transformation in India
“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.”
So begins this epic, mesmerizing novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees a maximum-security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear.
Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter Bombay’s hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and exiles seeking 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 an apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. His path leads him through war, prison torture, murder, and bloody betrayals.
The keys to Lin’s fate are held by two people: Khader Khan, a mafia godfather and criminal-philosopher-saint, and Karla, an elusive, dangerous beauty driven by tormenting secrets.
Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujaheddin guerrillas—this sweeping novel reaches across the entire spectrum of human experience. Based on the extraordinary life of the author, Shantaram is a passionate, unforgettable love letter to India.
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Community Reviews
A student recommended this book a few years ago, and I bought it from Audible then, but I only recently got around to listening to it. Any book that's 42 hours long requires that you be in the right mood!
And wow, I absolutely loved the first 25 or so hours. It expanded my mind in exactly the ways literature is designed to do, and that part I'd give five stars. But I wish the book had stopped there, as the last portion was like a different story. I'd give that part three stars at best, which is how I arrived at the average of four.
Now I'm curious to know why my former student enjoyed the book so much, as the story isn't at all what I was expecting from her enthusiastic reviews. But I'm just glad to discover that some students still read massive epics like this one!
And wow, I absolutely loved the first 25 or so hours. It expanded my mind in exactly the ways literature is designed to do, and that part I'd give five stars. But I wish the book had stopped there, as the last portion was like a different story. I'd give that part three stars at best, which is how I arrived at the average of four.
Now I'm curious to know why my former student enjoyed the book so much, as the story isn't at all what I was expecting from her enthusiastic reviews. But I'm just glad to discover that some students still read massive epics like this one!
“every human heart beat is a universe of possibilities.”
This is inspired storytelling by someone who values words, voices and experiences; the stuff that goes in making our lives cherishable. The narrative voice is reliable and the style original.
Thoroughly vivid and profound in parts, the story takes on hell of a journey, and I have to say that I find candid honesty in the voice as far as portrayal of India; the life in places, the values of people, strands of cultural fabric, if you will, human first, then Indian, Afghan, European or Australian, is concerned.
A page-turner as it is, the text renders equal justice in character build-up and the way the city breathes through the pages, you end up giving the author credit for seeing with a keen eye. I had to, initially, placate a concerned reader's voice inside me as to where it is going and the almost impossible gestural magnanimity being projected and displayed towards most things, most characters that the narrator ends up bumping in. But as the world of Lin opens up through the crevices of a city's underbelly as well as the whiff of its island-beauty, you find yourself excitedly taking a stroll with the characters. Eventually, it turns into an infectious and irresistible tale you don't want to take your mind's eyes off.
Having learned that the book is a part of a planned quartet, I would look forward to another book by Gregory Roberts. On of the many reasons why I liked the book is that irrespective of an overtly conscious effort to build upon literary styles much dominated by fashion, the tale unfolds and embraces without inhibitions. The reader starts, breathes and walks, takes a plunge, and is back. Home; enriched with words from some world.
This is inspired storytelling by someone who values words, voices and experiences; the stuff that goes in making our lives cherishable. The narrative voice is reliable and the style original.
Thoroughly vivid and profound in parts, the story takes on hell of a journey, and I have to say that I find candid honesty in the voice as far as portrayal of India; the life in places, the values of people, strands of cultural fabric, if you will, human first, then Indian, Afghan, European or Australian, is concerned.
A page-turner as it is, the text renders equal justice in character build-up and the way the city breathes through the pages, you end up giving the author credit for seeing with a keen eye. I had to, initially, placate a concerned reader's voice inside me as to where it is going and the almost impossible gestural magnanimity being projected and displayed towards most things, most characters that the narrator ends up bumping in. But as the world of Lin opens up through the crevices of a city's underbelly as well as the whiff of its island-beauty, you find yourself excitedly taking a stroll with the characters. Eventually, it turns into an infectious and irresistible tale you don't want to take your mind's eyes off.
Having learned that the book is a part of a planned quartet, I would look forward to another book by Gregory Roberts. On of the many reasons why I liked the book is that irrespective of an overtly conscious effort to build upon literary styles much dominated by fashion, the tale unfolds and embraces without inhibitions. The reader starts, breathes and walks, takes a plunge, and is back. Home; enriched with words from some world.
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