Shantaram: A Novel
by Gregory David Roberts
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Book Reviews of Shantaram: A Novel
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.
Book Review: Linbaba: the self-aggrandizing savior of Bombay
Summary: 3 Stars
If I met the protagonist, Linbaba, in the flesh, I'd, well, I'd beg my meatiest friend to rough him up. Repeatedly. Lin's adventures in Bombay are apparently based on humble author Gregory David Roberts's exploits playing savior and mafiosi there while in hiding after a daring New Zealand prison escape. LinBaba becomes irksome and tiresome after Part 1, repeatedly offering little nuggets of pseudowisdom to summarize what he has learned from a particular person or situation. (I actually really despise the aforementioned phrase "nugget of wisdom" but I find it accurate here to really emphasize the fact that these "nuggets" are fleeting and become utterly meaningless because there are apx. 10 per page). Along with the wisdom, most of the novel consists of the protagonist vacillating between moral extremes as either a savior of street and slum or a thug loyal to a Bombay mafia don. For all of these roles, and all of the blurring of good and evil, though, the novel still comes up short in terms of complexity --- in thought, theme, and characterization. I particularly found Lin's trust and god-like admiration of Khader, his mafia boss and father figure, too simplistic and naive.
Everything was just a bit too dizzying and dazzling, like Roberts knew this was going to be picked up by Hollywood. Lin insists upon showing readers that he has connections in all of Bombay's divergent milieus --- from Bollywood, to the slums, to the mafia, to the expats and the heroin dens, LinBaba knows all. He even goes to Afghanistan in the midst of the Soviet invasion. This novel needs more unity and focus; moving from one incident to another, with a bit of wisdom in between, gets tedious and vexing.
All that negativity aside, this was a grand adventure story and was, for all my complaints, entertaining. Roberts obviously has a flair for dialogue, capturing the dialects of German, French, and Indian speakers, and Prabaker, Lin's best friend in Bombay, is a standout character. Actually, he was the best part of the novel for me, and far more realistic and entertaining than anyone else.
Book Review: Couldn't get past the writer's ego, poor writing
Summary: 2 Stars
I'm amazed that I was able to make it through this entire book; initially I didn't think I would make it through the first few pages (I skipped them, because they were so stupid that I knew I would not make it to the story if I didn't do so).
I agree wholeheartedly with the other reviewer who called this "atrociously written, self-aggrandizing garbage." There are so many reasons to dislike this author - he's a criminal who apparently thinks he should be lauded for escaping prison; given the chance to start anew, he again chooses a life of crime; worst, he thinks his inane philosophical conversations were so incredibly profound that they all bore writing down and passing on to others. You know those super-irritating people who, when drunk, start babbling philosophy, thinking they sound awesomely smart? He and his buddies were a big group of those people, and he actually WROTE DOWN all those conversations and put them in the book! It's disgusting.
More importantly, when he's not doing straight narrative, his attempts at being poetic are painful. His similes and metaphors almost unfailingly defy logic. One that stands out in my mind was something akin to "her lips were swollen like grapes in the sun." Pardon me, but grapes + sun = raisins, am I wrong? I found myself stopping dead at these painful gaps in logic so often that, between these and the horrible philosophical drivel, eventually I realized I had to skip over anything that wasn't narrative/dialog.
All that said, the narrative part is, at least, an interesting story. I suspect that's why everyone thinks it's such a great book. I think a set of experiences like these did bear retelling, and that's why it gets 2 stars instead of one.
Unfortunately, there's no redemption in this tale. Rather than learning lessons, the author continues to be a criminal and an addict, and, when sent back to prison, it seems he wrote this book to brag about it all. His inflated sense of self-importance is so distasteful that it really taints the whole thing.
Book Review: The Best Novel of the 21st Century...so far
Summary: 5 Stars
FINALLY, a gut-wrenching, harrowing, well-penned novel, whose author suffers not from the literary constipation of most current "highbrow" authors (He's faced down far more deadly things, chronicled herein, to be affrighted by sharp penned editors.) - A book, in short, that will make your heart bleed with the depths to which the human soul can sink and the glories to which it can rise. ----I read so many books, but this is the first true work of art and genius published in this new century that I've managed to discover. It is a book from which I'm still recovering from having read. Like all great art, it leaves one with a new perspective on the world and causes one to reconnoitre the heart's bearings. The book strips away the lies we tell ourselves and leaves the heartstrings bare for the reader to see, where he/ she will recognise his/her own.
Let's get something straight here: This is not a book of "purple prose" or any form of sentimentality. Each tear shed is wrung from harrowing experience. As Roberts writes, "One of the reasons we crave love, and seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you."--Your soul will have cried with Roberts's many times before the end of the book.
This is truly a book for lovers of great literature. Roberts writes, "I never found a club or a clan or idea that was more important to me than the men and women who believed in it."--This book is one that values the mystery of people and the mystery of human existence above all else. ----Including yours, reader.
Book Review: Five Stars...or One?
Summary: 5 Stars
A book is only as good as what the reader takes from it. I read this during a confusing period in my life, and had to stop about halfway through. I stopped because I felt so close to the characters, so close to the raw emotion in the book, that when the protagonist does something I didn't like, I had to literally put the book down, and walk away for a few months. I would be the first to admit I didn't know a whole lot about a whole lot when I first started reading this. I still don't, really. But if you have the patience for this, you need to read it. During, and especially after finishing Shantaram, I felt like you could read this book, and contained within it are the keys to living a good life, a morally upstanding life. Since finishing this three years ago, I have changed quite a bit. What I felt back then, I don't feel now. The hope for a better future, the hope that people will not let you down, a general optimism. Those things are dead to me now, and so I will never read Shantaram again.
And this is the reason for my title, because I think if I went back and read this, I wouldn't be able to make it through. I'd find it slow, boring, heavy-handed and too poetic. Where back then I found the text beautiful, everything seemed fresh, I smelled what Lin smelled, and felt what he felt. I don't disagree with the one-star reviews here, or the five-star reviews. Books are highly subjective, and while there are some criteria that a book can be objectively graded against, I don't think the fault lies with Gregory Roberts' writing skill. This was an amazing novel when I read it. In my head it might never be replaced by another favorite. But for that reason, I can never re-read it, because in the words of Nelson Mandela: "There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."