Shantaram
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Book Details
Written by Gregory David Roberts.
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Editorial Review (from Amazon.com)
So begins this epic, mesmerizing first novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees 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 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. Based on the life of the author, it is by any measure the debut of an extraordinary voice in literature.
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Za thinks this book is Excellent.
A brilliantly evocative account of an Australian convict's escape to India in the 1970s, this is the story of Gregory David Roberts' metamorphosis from a fugitive on the run, to Linbaba, the white man who lived in the slums of Bombay and healed and helped those around him, to Shantaram, the Man of Peace, the product of years of enculturation in an India as seen through his eyes -- exotic, overwhelming, affectionate. Lin, as Roberts refers to himself throughout the book (the story is based on his own life) gropes his way to surviving in a strange land, learns languages that foreigners never would, makes friends with poor, stoically loyal and loving Indians like his tourist guide cum Man Friday, Prabaker, falls in love with the beautiful and enigmatic Swiss-American Karla, joins the ranks of the Bombay mafia, appears in a Bollywood movie, fights a war in Afghanistan, and lives a life he couldn't have conjured up in his wildest dreams, let alone foreseen experiencing.
Roberts' writing style is silken, easy yet profound, fluent, engrossing and altogether magical. I have my reservations with regard to how much of this story is autobiographical and how much delicately embroidered over, but the fact remains that he has indeed been a soldier of fortune and has intimately seen the rugged, unrelenting side to life in two seemingly irreconcilable worlds.
I would recommend Shantaram to anyone interested in the expositorial skills of an exceptional raconteur, ready for a glimpse of exotica and shining, floodlit cinemascope literature.
Soon to be made into a motion picture starring Johnny Depp as Shantaram.