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Jul 11, 2011

Jen rated it:

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 escape from an Australian prison (thanks for a fellow goodreader for correcting me ---I had previously written New Zealand). LinBaba becomes irksome and tiresome after Part 1, repeatedly offering little nuggets of pseud More...

17 comments like (63 people liked it)

Apr 20, 2008

Joseph rated it:

My god. What an incredible load of drivel this is. Though there is room in the world for large stories largely told, Gregory David Roberts' self-aggrandazing pseudo-autobiography teems with ludicrously bad prose, characters so flat I'd like to use them to keep water off my bathroom floor, dimwitted philosophy, and self-love. I quite literally had to stop reading from embarassment at the sex scenes ("my body was her chariot and she rode me into the sun"? ye gods), and repeatedly found m More...

15 comments like (59 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

MacK rated it:

I had been told that this was a beautiful love story. And it was; in between the parts where he mopes over lost loves so much that you feel like you're back in a middle school girl gripefest.

I had been told that this was a philosophically profound book. And it was; except for the passages where Roberts smug knowledge of "complexity" made you want to punch every philosophy major you ever knew right in the face as a proxy.

I had been told that this was a riveting p More...

2 comments like (30 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2008

Mairead rated it:

I've raced through this book. I launched from the starting block and whipped around the track, throwing off any ounce that kept me from pounding those pages into oblivion. And while I should feel exhausted and spent, I feel a calm energy, winding through my body like the inevitable thrum of traffic in Bombay or the warm steam unfurling from a cup of hot chai.

Shantaram, the latest in my conquests of literature about India, has captivated me. While the author's own personal history is More...

2 comments like (30 people liked it)

Jun 14, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

This is possibly the best book I've ever read. It was given to me by a friend of mine who loved it, and said that before she read it she had no desire to go to India, but after having read it she couldn't wait to go.

This book is over 900 pages, so I found it a little challenging to start b/c I didn't want to carry it around with me to read on the bus (too bulky) and I was so tired each night that I couldn't read more than a page or two. But I finally got a chance to read a small chun More...

2 comments like (31 people liked it)

Jan 26, 2008

Amy rated it:

There's enough reviews on this book I'm not going to summarize it again. I love this book, and yes it's massive but I think I've read it 3 times. It's not perfect but the parts that are great make up for the wobbly bits. I thought I'd throw in some of the lines I liked:

"The world and I are not on speaking terms," Karla said to me once in those early months. "The world keeps trying to win me back," she said, "but it doesn't work. I guess I'm just not the forgi More...

0 comments like (37 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Nicole rated it:

Gripping story. Beautiful descriptions of India and its people. Rhetorical dialogue provides provocative one-line philosophical nuggets:

"Civilization, after all, is defined by what we forbid, more than what we permit."

"The worst thing about corruption as a system of government is that it works so well."

"A lot of bad stuff in the world wasn't really that bad until someone tried to change it."

"The truth is a bull More...

6 comments like (14 people liked it)

Jan 07, 2008

Chuckell added it

This book bugs.

Of course, I knew that I could have defeated the stoned, terrifying swordsman with just my fists. . . .

Fortunately, my friends had given me a gigantic first-aid kit before I left, so I had enough medicine to cure the scores of burn victims. . . .

The guards had given me--the dangerous convict doing hard labor--an extra-long, heavy-duty extension cord that I was able use to scale the prison wall. . . .

I saw in his eyes the shining c More...

1 comment like (15 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2008

Christopher rated it:

I managed 200 pages of this utter drivel before giving up completely. Poorly-written nonsense which is gathering critical acclaim from people who probably read one book a year.

At one point - during a scene when the narrator is looking at a river - he ACTUALLY writes: 'I was thinking of another river. A river that runs through all of us. The river of the heart.'

I do not have time in my life for this sub-Danielle Steel horseshit.

10 comments like (25 people liked it)

Mar 24, 2009

Stacey rated it:

I moved this from my "currently reading" shelf to my "read" shelf because there is no "I gave up on this piece of crap" shelf. 600 pages into it, I had to set myself free by throwing it in the toilet. No, seriously, I threw it in the toilet. Then I had to fish it out and clean the deluge of toilet water all over the place created by this tremendously large and heavy piece of crap book. This book makes me angry because I will never get that 600 pages of my life back More...

9 comments like (18 people liked it)

Dec 04, 2008

Laura rated it:

The New York Times nailed Shantaram when they said that it is "nothing if not entertaining." The problem is trying to find what else it is. Nine hundred pages of page-turning narrative and I wonder if I have gained anything by it. The characters lack fullness and complexity, the narrator is absurd, and the language suffers the burden of passages so heavily cliched and saturated with bite-sized pseudo-philosophical tidbits as to reduce the novel to little more than a self-help book. He More...

3 comments like (15 people liked it)

Aug 11, 2011

Lara rated it:

I loved, loved the first part of this book. The author's description of arriving in Mumbai is so similar to my experience - the sites and smells, staying in Colaba, the restaurants visited - it really brought back my trip to a city I loved.

However, I've had to put this one down for a bit of a break. I just have the feeling Gregory David Roberts is pretty far up his own ass and I'm not sure I'm buying what he's selling.

What's making it hard to just sit back and enjoy thi More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Aug 29, 2008

Mayuri rated it:

The way Roberts describes Indians in this book is like a series of bad caricatures - I cringed terribly. There is the over-friendly and smiling, trusting, barbaric, not very clever, poor Prabaker - (I HATED the way he wrote Prabaker's English. It made him sound like a racist Disney character or like the golum from LOTR) to the cool and smooth Iranian gangster (if you like ridiculous Bollywood movies, this is the book for you!) In typical fashion, the white guy is the hero of nearly every scene, More...

1 comment like (16 people liked it)

May 11, 2011

Britta rated it:

I read this book two summers ago in the intermittent stage of employment, unemployment and my triumphant return to higher education and I say this because in terms of girth, Shantaram is one of the largest books I've ever had the courage or time to take on. You will need to be unemployed with very few commitments to consume this book. It's massive nine-hundred and thirty three pages demand your attentive loyalty until the end. But if you have the time and devotion to give it a go or you're just More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 24, 2008

Lori rated it:

Turns out this was a 4 star. Maybe even a 5. Let's see how it settle with me. I wasn't sure when I began, oh say the first 200 pages or so! Yeah this is a long long book. I found the author (I'd say this is more a memoir altho it does read like a novel) to be too full of himself at first, and prone to cliches. Like finding living in the illegal slums of Bombay to be the purest life ever. And he's a hardened criminal but opens a free clinic because he's got such a good soul. And the mafia boss is More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jul 16, 2011

Kim rated it:

"Shantaram" was okay. I had this book on my "To-read" list for a long time and had heard great things about it, so I was looking forward to the book. I have to admit that I was disappointed.

It was a good story, but Roberts needs some serious editing! It is way to long. I would have enjoyed the book and increased my rating if it had been about three hundred pages shorter.

My favorite part of the story is Mumbai. Roberts does do a great job of tellin More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 26, 2008

Chak rated it:

Whew! This whirlwind of a book was a reader's feast. The recurring themes of forgiving, choosing love over hate, recognizing each person's ability to change his fate, and "doing the wrong thing for the right reasons" can make this book read like a self-help book or confessional visit at times. Yet, it is also a lush (and sometimes overwritten) swashbuckling adventure, an ambient study of Bombay, a crime novel, a doomed love story as well as a philosophical travelogue akin to "On the Road More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Sep 10, 2008

Mehrsa rated it:

I haven't enjoyed reading a book this much in a long time. Even though it was over 900 pages, I didn't want it to end. I wanted to know more about Lin's life and just keep hearing about his insights and about India and whatever he wanted to talk about. This book is a semi-autobiographical story of a man who escapes prison in Australia and escapes to Bombay and lives there for many years. First he sets up a clinic in the slums and then he works for the Bombay mafia and in the meantime, he just ha More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jul 09, 2008

Cathy rated it:

I absolutely loved this book! I am surprised, because it's a bit different from what I usually read, and lately I haven't found many books that have been to my liking, but this one is probably one of my favorite books ever!

It's true that I was a bit annoyed at first, because Roberts uses very "flowery" language at times including lots of metaphores like: "My eyes were lost, swimming, floating free in the shimmering lagoon of her steady, even stare", "Her youn More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2008

Debra rated it:

This is one of those rare books that I couldn't put down at first and then WANTED to read slowly at the end because I so didn't want the pleasure of reading it--all 1000 pages of it--to cease. It's got the spiritual quest of The Razor's Edge; the redemptive beauty of The Kite Runner; the descriptive adventures of The Sorcerer's Apprentice; and the drugs, brutality, prostitution, and violence of The Godfather. While I might have enjoyed the time the narrator spent navel-gazing(and the resultin More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Oct 04, 2007

Lanai rated it:

Upon reading the below, opening paragraph of David Gregory Robert's Shantaram, I knew that the book I was holding in my hands was special. Maybe even special enough to change my life. After countless hours of laughing out loud, suspenseful moments and fighting back a few tears, I was right.

"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Apr 07, 2009

Ruby rated it:

This book was highly entertaining, though sometimes annoyingly preachy and deliberately epigrammatic.

10 sept 2007:

page 60 - "the truth is a bully we all pretend to like." one could quibble about the precise identity of the accused, but the sentiment is dead on.

page 63 - "some loves are like that. most loves are like that. your heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. you throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Mar 01, 2009

Diane rated it:

If you want to read a movie-in-a-book, this one is for you. It's a fantastic and mostly autobiographical story about a guy who busts out of a prison in Australia and goes into exhile in Bombay - he starts a free clinic in a slum, gets involved in black market dealings, and of course, falls in love. It has everything you would ever want in a good adventure story - excitement, intrigue, passion, the mafia, drugs, murder, scandal. And it's well-written. Roberts' sentences are so delicious - so vivi More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 07, 2011

Jsarno49 rated it:

I really enjoyed this epic novel that took place in India and Afghanistan during the 1980s. Roberts tells the story of Lin who, like Odysseus,has many adventures in search of "home" which for him is inner peace. Early in the novel, a friend's mother gives him the name Shantaram, which means man of peace or man of God's peace. In his quest to live up to his name, he travels from India where he lives in the heart of the slums of Bombay, a native village, an infamous prison, an opium More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 07, 2011

Matthew rated it:

Reminded me a lot of Siddhartha, if Herman Hesse had been an asshole. Okay, kidding aside, I really liked the last 3rd of this book, and some of the characters (Prabakar for one) were great stuff. The main character was pretty much a wash for me- he seemed to suffer from that "superman" syndrome I see in books alot, where the main character is effortlessly a 1) Multi, multi linguist, 2) knife fighter, 3) writer, 4) philosopher, 5) medical practitioner, and 6) forger. I might be miss More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 23, 2012

Paul added it

A good friend loved Shantaram and loaned me her copy. Even though I wasn't getting into it, I pressed on for almost 300 pages, about a third of the way through. I'm not going to hazard a rating on a book I put aside in mid-read, so no stars. It's written well enough, but it demands a credulity I'm not willing to give it.

Shantaram labels itself a novel, but Gregory David Roberts wants us to believe it's a memoir. The author's bio says he's a former heroin addict who robbed people to More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2008

Jack rated it:

Hideous purple prose, every plot twist signposted with clunking obviousness, padded out with pseudo-mystic 'philosophy', riddled with obscene poverty-licking and Orientalism. It's only use is as a barometer: view anyone who enjoyed this with suspicion.

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Sep 07, 2011

Kimberley rated it:

Life-changing, such a beautiful book. Full of such profound wisdom about human nature and pages of quotes you'll want to memorize and live by.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 07, 2011

Tasneem rated it:

A fascinating book that maintains momentum all the way through its 930 pages. The story provided many insights into the various social structures existing in and around Bombay including the urban slum-life, ex-pat life, prison-life, mob-life and village-life. I visited Bombay a handful of times and lived there once for three months, so I got to know the neighborhoods pretty well. Roberts is a true insider when it comes to his familiarity with the core of the city. The cultural commentary he w More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 27, 2009

Nicholas rated it:

ok... I'm about 3/4 of the way through and this book needs to end now.
Thought I'd hit the wall sooner, but the story pulls you along quite well for the most part.
But my limit has been reached. This book does NOT need to be SO long. If you only took out the dopey description of Karla's eyes he dribbles on with every time he mentions her, you'd knock off a few thousand words to start with. We get it dude. She has nice eyes. Get over it. Yes, yes, they are like a hidden lagoon at dusk, More...

1 comment like (11 people liked it)