Shantaram: A Novel by Gregory David Roberts Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.87 You Save: $8.12 (54%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $2.96 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Shantaram: A Novel
Book Review: A Literary Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
Best prose I've ever seen from an ex prisoner. Raises the big questions in philosophy in the context of a gripping story layered with literary flourishes. I couldn't put it down and read all 936 pages in less than 2 weeks.
Shaun Attwood
Book Review: A Once in a Lifetime Read
Summary: 5 Stars
I can count on two hands the number of books that I have come across in my life that have, from the first page, looked into my heart and caused me to fall in love. "Shantaram" by Australian author Gregory David Roberts is one of those books.
It is a memoir/novel, which I assume to mean that a lot of this story is true, and some of it fictionalized, but whether real or not, it is without a doubt one of the most exquisitely written books I have come across in a long time.
It's the story of a man who is an escaped convict from a New Zealand prison, arrives in Bombay, India, and assumes a new identity and a new life. In a short time he falls in love with India the country, the culture, its people and the way of life in the slums, and decides to stay.
The language is stunning. For example, he describes Victoria Terminus train station in Bombay (which one can only imagine must be nothing but a bustle of humanity and accompanying noise of same) as:
"..beneath a metal heaven of rolling vaulted ceilings. The cherubs of that architectural sky were pigeons, so far overhead in their flutter from roost to roost that they were only faintly discernible; distant celestial beings of flight, and white light."
At almost every page a description, a conversation or a personal insight is shared with the reader in such a way that it almost feels like the author is just speaking to you - and only you. A private conversation. An intimate tete-a-tete. Each one a gem that beckons to admire, to be amazed by the turn of phrase, but above all to reckon with the total honesty of the dark underbelly of the real story.
If you want to delve into a page turner, be swept away into an other-worldly delight, and fall helplessly into a literary rapture, read this book!
Book Review: A Real Treasure
Summary: 5 Stars
Not very often a book comes along and takes hold of your heart like this one does. I wanted so badly to never put this book down but instead forced myself to take it slowly and digest every morsel of information, every description, every new emotion it provoked. I didn't mind that Lin became the one that everyone loved too much, I was too involved in the escape to some far off land so different from my own in a way that I was right there too. I loved this book; I will have to look far and wide to find another I'd enjoy as much.Book Review: A Saga
Summary: 5 Stars
You cannot put this book down once you start it. What a page turner! The author has amazing insight into government, politicians, criminals, the justice system, and society in general. One of the best books I have read in a decade. I wished the ending of the book had been more specific about he was recaptured and went back to prison. I wish that it had incorporated more about his re-incarceration, release, and travel back to Mumbai.
JB
Book Review: A Seductively Dangerous Book
Summary: 1 Stars
In many ways Roberts is an amazing writer. He draws compelling characters, creates a wonderful sense of space, and uses language colorfully. However, Shantaram, ultimately goes nowhere and is unsatisfying. It is a book about an addict. A man who is addicted to heroin, to crime, to ideas and to his inflated sense of self importance.
Shantaram is a novel the same way "A Million Little Pieces" is. It's autobiographical with poetic license.
A heroin addict, turned criminal, busts out of a maximum security jail in Australia, and with a forged passport, winds up in Bombay. He assumes the name Lin, given to him by the first guide he meets, and has many of the personal adventures described on the book jacket. In between the adventures, Lin preaches often cryptically sounding ideas, which are more glib than pithy -- there is no art without forgiveness, fanaticism is the opposite of love, etc. etc.
Ultimately, for all his musings, Lin learns nothing. He simply transfers one addiction for another. He was constantly betrayed by men in the Indian mafia, and you are led to believe that maybe he'll break away, but, no. After fighting in one war to aid a man who betrayed him in every way, he will ultimately fight in another for the same man, because he owed his life (which would never have been at risk in the first place, had he not gone to war for his Don, Khader) to a henchman.
When appalled at people's distaste for his descriptions of his compatriots as honorable men, Lin will glibly say that there's a difference between honor and virtue. Men who are arsonists, forgers (helping wanted men to travel), smugglers, who sacrifice their friends to put police off their trails are neither honorable, nor virtuous. They are thugs,who will turn on you, if need be. They turned on Lin and left him in prison, knowing they could have gotten him out, and knowing that he was supposed to be beaten to death. Yet the fact that he survived made him tougher and more valuable.
Roberts should find a more interesting subject than himself to write about. He certainly has the skill to do so. I hope he has the interest.