Shantaram

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

Nine hundred and thirty three pages, and I loved them all. Prior to writing my own review, I did a little web surfing and discovered that on amazon.com there are 438 reviews, 312 of them five-star! It’s clearly the kind of book that people respond to. Roberts has his own website, and Wikipedia has a plot summary and list of characters (quite an achievement.) With so much already said, I will just mention some of the reasons why I kept on reading.
I loved the way Roberts creates the setting, Bombay. The city should really be added to the list of characters. Clearly, Roberts himself loves the city in all its many aspects. Having had my heart broken in A Fine Balance, I loved reading about the joy that people can find when living in the direst conditions. Reduced to the worst poverty imaginable, Roberts’ slum-dwellers possess pride and loyalty, creativity, patience, self-respect, a sense of community and a commitment to their fellows. Roberts celebrates their strengths rather than focusing on their neediness.
I loved the characters because each one had his own complexity. Each one had a bit of wisdom to offer, had strengths and weaknesses, was dealing with a clouded past and was fighting his own way to happiness.
I loved the questions posed by these characters. Karla, the main love interest, felt loyalty to the mafia boss who had rescued her from a nervous breakdown and yet wanted to break free from him. Permanently scarred by her murder of a man who abused her, her emotions are permanently numbed, she is unable to feel for anybody and uses people without compunction. We understand her trauma, condemn her manipulativeness and hope for her redemption.
Khaderbai, the mafia boss is another complex character. He is capable of great love, he supports his followers, he is wise and continues to search for truth with a spiritual teacher, he is principled in his refusal to deal in drugs and prostitution, and yet he believes that the end justifies the means and orders the murder of a loyal follower in order to consolidate the power of his empire and takes advantage of the loyalty of his followers by taking them on a dangerous mission to Afghanistan in order to fulfill a personal promise.
Abdullah is a dangerous killer, but is capable of fierce loyalty.
I loved the pacing of the book. Each chapter was action-packed but book-ended with philosophical reflections, interspersed with poetic descriptions and punctuated with episodes which described life in the slums, techniques of passport forgery, the atmosphere in popular bars or gyms, the deliberations of the mafia council, Bollywood productions, and on and on. The appeal of the book is not purely narrative. There is much to ponder, and many images to conjure. The pace is comfortable, and after a few chapters, one is happy to put down the book and think about it for awhile.
There is a lot to learn from this book. The descriptions of prison conditions and slavery in brothels was alarming. The operation of the mafia was interesting. The excursion to Afghanistan during the Russian regime gave pertinent background to the current situation in that country. And the setting of Bombay, in its many quarters and moods, gave me a new understanding of this complex and foreign city.
Many of the experiences in Roberts own life are paralleled in his book, and although it is not strictly autobiographical, the descriptions and characters have an authenticity and originality that we feel is genuine. He has taken us to a place which we will never forget, and we are wiser for having met his characters and visited his parts of the world.