|
I just finished reading SHANTARAM, by Gregory David Roberts. Each page was a savory delight! Roberts is Australian. A hardened criminal serving time for armed robbery and other misdeeds, he escaped from prison and vanished into the Bombay slums. Recaptured, Roberts was returned to hard time in Australia where he began writing this book. SHANTARAM is fiction, but it is also the story of Gregory David Roberts.
Roberts began writing this novel and, after 3 years, he had completed 300 pages. One day he returned to his cell to discover the laughter of a sadistic guard who was in the process of flushing the torn pieces of his manuscript down the toilet. He had to start all over. 3 years later he had again written almost 300 pages. At that point, another vicious prison guard again destroyed his manuscript. After 6 years it would have seemed that Gregory David Roberts had nothing. WRONG. Through his travails, Roberts had learned how to write! Looking back, after finally finishing the book, he realized that these horrible events were a gift! He would have kept the original manuscripts had they not been destroyed! By being forced to re-write over and over Roberts learned his craft! Years later, out of prison, the book completed, Roberts embraced one of his destructive captors, thanking him for the gift that was given with such malevolence. The book is so much better because the original was destroyed!
SHANTARAM runs almost 1000 pages. Each page is the equivalent of a succulent fruit, some are sour, others,oozing with sweetness. It is the story of a man, Shantaram, who escaped from an Australian prison. He ends up becoming a slum doctor in Bombay and in so doing, he falls in love with India and its people. He is recaptured and endures ghastly torture in a Bombay prison. Bailed out by criminals, Shantaram becomes a member of an underworld crime family that deals in false passports, black market currency trading, and gold smuggling. The novel is set in the 1980's. As the scene shifts to Afghanistan the reader will discover the roots of the Taliban, the monster that was created in large part by US dollars. The Soviet collapse in the mountains of Afghanistan set the stage for the fall of the Iron Curtain.
SHANTARAM gives the reader a panoramic view of Bombay (Mumbai). Roberts has an incredible gift; every word is precious to him and becomes so for the reader. His descriptions of the scenery are poetic. The book unfolds with cinematic grace. One would think that a book of this size would contain excess and waste. It doesn't. Roberts writes with economy and precision. Everything seems real, perhaps because Roberts lived so much of his "fiction." The best books provide escape. This book is the tale of a man escaping from himself. The narrator, Lin (Shantaram), is trying to hide from the authorities and from his own past. His concealments serve to illuminate our own subterfuges as human beings. One cannot read this book without looking in to our own personal mirrors. Who is looking back at you, and why? What choices are you making in your own life that define your place here? What is love? What is happiness? How do we find fulfillment in this existence? Roberts has written a beautiful book, a novel that brims with life. SHANTARAM was published in the US on September 15th on the St. Martins Press
PLUS this BONUS review!
The most dazzling fiction is often taken from elements of our real lives. We have such a novel in SHANTARAM,by Gregory David Roberts. The author has used his own amazing life story as the foundation for his book. Roberts was an Australian criminal known as "the Gentleman Bandit." In a vain effort to support his heroin habit, he committed a series of armed robberies while wearing a three piece suit and brandishing a toy pistol. Captured, and sentenced to 19 years in prison, Roberts escaped and lived a fugitive existence for over a decade, on 4 continents. During that period he survived as a gunrunner, counterfeiter, forger, slum doctor, rock singer, stunt man, and movie actor. SHANTARAM is a distillation of the writer's incredible life on the run. Recaptured in Germany, Roberts was returned to jail, where he began to write this book. 3 years and 300 pages later, the manuscript was flushed down the toilet by a sadistic guard. 3 more years passed while Roberts rewrote the book, only to have another guard destroy all of his work.
Greg Roberts is a patient man These cruel acts forced him to become a real writer. Set in Bombay, SHANTARAM is the sprawling tale of a man very much like the author. A fugitive vanishes into the slums, a man named Lin. He becomes involved with an Indian crime syndicate. Over the course of almost 1000 pages the reader discovers many exotic worlds. Part thriller, part romance, SHANTARAM is about life. Roberts has a rare gift in his ability to shift from horror to humor, and we get a serious dose of philosophy as Lin finds a mentor and father figure in the person of his Bombay crime boss. The best books take us to places that we never knew existed. Gregory David Roberts takes readers on a tour of a dark and lonely place; his soul.
Greg Roberts has fallen in love with India and the Indian people. He shares that passion with his readers. Lin heals the sick in the teeming Bombay slums. He falls in love with a mysterious and unattainable woman. Recaptured, he endures ghastly tortures in an Indian prison. Bailed out by his criminal brethren, he immerses himself in a world of false passports, gold smuggling, and black market currency trading . The novel is set in the 1980's and the action shifts to Afganistan where the roots of the Taliban are sprouting in the guerrilla war that set the stage for the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Panoramic in conception,already an international bestseller, SHANTARAM is my favorite book so far, this year.It was just announced that Johnny Depp will star as SHANTARAM in the film version of the book!
vick@vickmickunas.com
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 6/19/04; 11:03:21 AM
from the dept.
|
