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Shantaram

4.22 of 5 stars 4.22 · rating details · 40,696 ratings · 5,528 reviews

"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 being tortured."

So begins this epic, mesmerizing first novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who f...more

Kindle Edition, 946 pages

Published October 13th 2004 by St. Martin's Press (first published August 1st 2003)

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Nov 18, 2012 Petra X rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crap-authors-and-books-i-loathed, fiction, biography-true-story

Like Marmite, or Vegemite - another Australian export - you either loved this book or hated it. I hated it. I really, really hated it. It was a waste of my life enduring five chapters of this egotistical drivel by someone who thought their life was 933-pages worth of importance. He was an escaped convict from an Australian prison and I bet his fellow prisoners and warders must have sighed with relief to no longer be victims of this self-righteous man's endless burble of cod-philosophy, 'deep' in...more

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Jul 11, 2011 Jen Padgett Bohle rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 pseudowi...more 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 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. (less)

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May 14, 2013 Marnie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: abandoned

Have you ever been in a relationship that you were just done with but you were hoping they would end it and so you suffer through, day after day, rolling your eyes every time that person does that THING that you HATE and, yah, it was kind of fun at first but if they keep doing that THING that you HATE, you are going to end up saying something really mean and you really don't want to do that because they mean well and are nice but they just drive you up the wall?

You know what you need to do? You...more Have you ever been in a relationship that you were just done with but you were hoping they would end it and so you suffer through, day after day, rolling your eyes every time that person does that THING that you HATE and, yah, it was kind of fun at first but if they keep doing that THING that you HATE, you are going to end up saying something really mean and you really don't want to do that because they mean well and are nice but they just drive you up the wall?

You know what you need to do? You need to save both of you more trouble and pain and just dump that person already, and frankly, that's how I feel about this book, so even though I'm nearly at the end, I can't take it anymore. I roll my eyes every few minutes, I dread turning the audiobook on. It had it's good moments and its merits but this is NOT the book for me.

This book is billed as a "semi-autobiographical" story. I'm not sure what to make of that, though I guess it's more honest than some authors are. The story feels a bit like a diary. While the protagonist is almost always the center of any story, this one is particularly so. The main character interacts with other people, and we get some back story on them, but they are always half hearted accounts and they only serve as conduits for learning more about the narrator. This format, wherein you only ever see as far as the main character comprehends the situation, can work, but it's done so lazily, here.

Throughout the book, the main character meets someone and then says something like "I don't know why but I _____ the person right away." Lazy. Lazy lazy lazy writing. People feel that way, but authors owe it to their readers to make THEM feel as though they don't know why but they ____ the person. The most atrocious example of this lazy writing is the love-at-first-sight nonsense. I do genuinely believe that people feel intense attractions to certain other people at the moment they see them, but, again, it's the authors job to paint a picture that tells us what he sees in that person. At best, he gives us a portrait of a woman he thinks is beautiful and that he doesn't understand, which means the only thing we feel is that there's some pretty woman with no personality and no complexity to speak of and we are supposed to believe she's worth pining over. These many people the author interacts with, drive the story forward and serve as motivation but, at least for me, I never understood why. I don't cry why people die, I don't feel bad when people leave. I don't know why one woman is more or less desirable than another. I am simply told that this is how the character feels.

While this issue struck me from the outset, there is a lot in the story that is interesting and compelling. I've only had a superficial, tourist experience with India, so learning more about everyday life and people there is wonderful, but just as I'd start to sink into the story, I'd be jarred by my second peeve about this book. The author, over and over again, stops the story to make some sort of metaphor about how some event or emotion is like some sort of grandiose, most important thing that has ever been (and pretty much everything is the most something that has ever something'ed). This isn't a case where he makes a particular point, once, maybe twice, that is central to the story. Nope, it's trite little sayings like "Truth is a bully that we all pretend to like" and "Silence is the tortured mans revenge" and "Guilt is the hilt of the knife that we use on ourselves" and on and on it goes, breaking up the flow of the story so the author can impress you with how clever he is. Like exclamation points and adverbs, this sort of mental masturbation needs to be applied sparingly, but it's constant and it wasn't too long before I started to get so focused on when the next detour down poetry lane would be that I simply stopped hearing the story, altogether. On the other hand, if you want to get really piss-drunk, try having a shot every time he pulls one of these gems out. You'll need your stomach pumped.

I'll concede that my concerns might be largely a stylistic preference. There are certainly a fair number of people who thought this story was wonderful and poetic. It's not for me, though, and I'm happier for admitting defeat on this. I'll never know how the story ends and I'm fine with that. I give it 2 stars because there really were times when I was engrossed in the story.(less)

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Apr 20, 2008 Joseph rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: dimwitted psuedo-philosophers, the author's mother

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 myself sayi...more

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Dec 19, 2007 MacK rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: world-lit, contemporary

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 page turner. And it was; until he g...more

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Feb 19, 2008 Mairead rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: the-heart

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 enthralling...more 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 enthralling in and of itself, his writing is what spurred me through the frantic pace of this last read. After I read a book it usually contains tiny scraps of paper or kleenex, marking my favorite phenomenal quotes. Usually, I'm lucky to get two or three.

I've got a bakers dozen of scrap paper shreds marking my territory. And my favorite is below:

"Every life, every love, every action and feeling and thought has its reason and significance: its beginning, and the part it plays in the end. Sometimes, we do see..Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow. And in the tiny, precious wisdom they give to us, even those dread and hated enemies, suffering and failure, have their reason and their right to be." (pg. 872)

Our narrator is flawed and human. The book jacket advertises his past as a armed robber and prisoner in high-security facility, from which he escaped and travelled to Bombay. His work as a gunrunner, drug dealer, improvised doctor, and more float him throughout the chapters as he meanders in and out of the others lives. These people -- a charismatic cab driver, a carved up man in love, a gang leader with all the answers, a young child obsessed with prayers -- are what drive our protagonist, taking us with him through dawning awareness of self, of others, and of our importance to this world.

Sometimes you read a book to let yourself flow out onto its pages, to work through the black ink and white pulp as a character yourself. This book lets you do that, offering you havens of risk in which you can turn your palm over and consider, am I a good person? What have I done with the inevitable failures and sorrows that life has brought my way?

I hope that you too finish this book with tears of happiness and understanding clinging to your cheeks, pure and clean. (less)

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Jun 14, 2008 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 chunk of it in o...more

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Jan 26, 2008 Amy Luke rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone who reads

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 forgiving type."

"If you want to curdle the...more

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Dec 04, 2007 Nicole rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people going to India

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 bully that everyone pretends to like."

"A dream is where a wish and a fear meet. A nightma...more

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Jan 07, 2008 Chuckell added it · review of another edition

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 crowning glory of a soul at utmost peace and his...more

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Jan 29, 2008 Christopher rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: no-one

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.

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Mar 24, 2009 Stacey rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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. I could have been doing somet...more 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. I could have been doing something important like closing my eyes really tight to see an intersting light show or going through my neighbors trash.

A great deal of this book is obviously autobiographical. I base this clever decution on the fact that the author, who is a former convict who escaped from prison and fled to Bombay where he lived in the slums, started a free medical clinic and joined the mafia, writes a book about a guy who escapes from prison and flees to Bomabay where he lives in the slums, starts a free medical clinis and joins the mafia. As such, it is written in the manner of someone who is scared of offending their former host and who also seems concerned that flaws in the main character will reflect badly on himself, the author. This sacrifices any possibility of creating an intersting, dynamic or realistic main character. It is comletely uncompelling and entirely unbelievable. The story of a westerner who integrates himself into Indian society, starting in the slums, should be facinating. To read this, everything and everyone is wonderful, the people are all so loving and beautiful, blah blah blah. Maybe all that is true, but hey there main character, weren't you a little frustrated and embarrassed when everyone in town lined up to watch you take a crap every morning? Everything negative the character experiences is presented as an account of facts, everything positive is a big sappy gush fest. Give me a break.

Then the reader is then regaled with pages upon pages of various characters spoon feeding each other philosphy. Sad twelve year old girls writing poetry could provide more inspiration.

I don't understand why this book gets such good reviews. There are so many amazing books about India. Read one of them. Better yet, just go to India. The money you would spend on this book will get you at least 2 meals depending on where you are. If you've had the misfortune of receiving this book as a gift, use it to kill spiders or keep it by your bedside to throw at possible intruders. Just don't waste your time reading it.
(less)

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Dec 04, 2008 Laura rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mindless-entertainment, not-worth-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. Here's one pa...more

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Aug 25, 2008 Lara rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

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 this book is Robert's descrip...more

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Aug 29, 2008 Mayuri rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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

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Mar 04, 2013 Duygu rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book has lots of teachings which one should have his/her own copy because it is a very personal ride one takes with this book. You have to underline the sentences that touched your heart and you should go back to it to understand yourself better. The war part was very hard reading for me, but overall i did love this book. It was a suggestion from a good friend of mine and I do suggesst everyone to read it for sure- and to finish it ofcourse!

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May 11, 2011 Britta rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

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 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 one of those people who love the never-ending narratives of books like Atlas Shrugged or War and Peace, I promise you will not be disappointed.

I've had very little contact with Aussie writers but, Gregory David Roberts is a gem. The book follows Lin, an escaped convict who flees a maximun security prison in Australia to hide out in the slums of Bombay. Think slum-dog millionaire without the corney, happy ending of being "saved" by the American fairy-godmother which is "Who Wants to be a Millionaire." Roberts takes you into the real slums of India; blood, sweat, shit and leprosy.

We meet prostitutes, holy men, soldiers, mujaheddin guerillas, Bollywood actors, the Asian equivalent of Marlene Dietrich, and other exiles hiding out in the teeming mass of Bombay's population. Lin serves time as a "doctor" to the slum tenants, and eventually as an apprentice to the Bombay mafia which leads him to war, prison torture and murder.

Based on the true story of the author who was himself an escapee from Melbourne prison, an exile in India and a street soldier for the Bombay mafia, Shantaram is absorbing. I could not put it down until I reached the end.

One Warning: I highly doubt anyone who is mildly flirting with East Indian culture will be able to fully appreciate this novel. So if you want to read it without running to the computer to look up Hindi words and deities or Muslim practices and tenants every five minutes, bone up a little first.

Otherwise, I give it five stars. I thought it was a great read.

You can read more about Gregory Roberts here: http://shantaram.com/(less)

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Sep 24, 2008 Lori (Hellian) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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

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Apr 19, 2010 Kim rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"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 telling us about this city and the different sections o...more

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Apr 23, 2012 Antara rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's taken me 3 attempts in 4 years to finish this book - I cannot stress this fact enough as I'm one of those obsessive compulsive readers and every time I leave a book unfinished, I swear I can feel it staring back accusingly from my bookshelf until I'm compelled to pick it up again. And having finally turned the last page, I've figured out why this book is both highly recommended as well as painfully difficult to finish.

The problem very simply is this - the first and last parts of the book ar...more

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Apr 02, 2011 Pennybrozda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of the very best books I have ever read. The writing is so good I am anxious to travel to India, a place I had never wanted to go. He even makes the slums sound fascinating.

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Jan 23, 2012 Paul marked it as did-not-finish · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

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 support his h...more 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 support his habit and was imprisoned. He escaped from prison and lived as a fugitive in India. The book's protagonist is a former heroin addict who robbed people to support his habit and was imprisoned. He escaped from prison and lived as a fugitive in India. We are clearly meant to think Shantaram is a slightly-fictionalized autobiography.

I had a hard time swallowing the premise. In fact, by the time I decided to put Shantaram aside and move on to another book, I no longer believed Gregory David Roberts was ever an addict, a prisoner, or a fugitive. The story he tells is too tall, too unlikely. In every chapter, his protagonist Lin encounters some obvious setup or another, and they all go his way. Lin always makes the right move and says the right thing. Lin invariably makes the right friends. When Lin comes to a fork in the road, he unerringly turns down the serendipitous path.

Lin's adventures are meant to wow us with the wisdom of the Indian people ... cheap and easy wisdom at that, the sort of thing you'd get out of a TV movie about a plucky inner-city school teacher learning valuable life lessons from the ghetto kids in his classroom. People are good if you give them a chance. People may live in desperate poverty in slums, but they can still smile and work together. Bullies will back down if you let them know you're not afraid of them.

There's a long tradition of Westerners pursuing Indian wisdom (and drugs, always drugs ... Lin is no exception). But I'm not seeing any real wisdom here. Shantaram comes across as Slumdog Millionaire with a white hero, and that right there gives it a creepy imperialist overlay ... as immersed as Lin becomes in the Bombay underworld, he is still a white first-world foreigner, and the breaks that come his way happen precisely because he is a white first-world foreigner. For all his talk of of the life-changing wisdom he gains by living among poor humble Indians, had he been a poor humble Indian himself he wouldn't have survived his first night in the slums.(less)

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Aug 26, 2008 Chak rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Peter Chelk.

Shelves: like, favorites, non-fiction

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" or "Ze...more

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Sep 10, 2008 Mehrsa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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

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Jul 09, 2008 Cathy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Cathy by: my sister and my friend Mona

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 young face,..., looked as if it had been...more 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 young face,..., looked as if it had been carved in volcanic stone by the rush of a river", "Her eyes were the colour of amber, set in rose gold, ... , and the high curves of her cheekbones were the mountains from which her amber eyes studied the world." But, strangely enough I came to really like his descriptions. Yes, they're a bit over the top at times, but they never fail to get the message across and they're seldom used without a purpose.

It's also true that in parts, especially towards the latter half, the book is pretty violent. The main caharcter, Lin, works with the Bombay mafia and encounters many fights and murders, and Roberts doesn't shy away from very vivid descriptions of these events either. However, somehow, the focus is on the people, not the actions, and so as horrible as the events may be, they didn't bother me, because I was so focused on the characters.

At first I liked the book, but it was a bit slow. Around page 100 it really picks up speed and becomes very funny and I laugehd out loud many times. Roberts' love for India and it's people is so evident in this entire book and it made me feel good! He writes with so much affection and pokes fun at himself more than anyone, and I really enjoyed his wisdom - we westerners don't always know best and just because something is "wrong" to us, doesn't mean it's really wrong, just different!

Honestly - I'd recommend this book to just about anyone. It's a long read (over 1,000 pages) but I enjoyed every minute of it and I'm returning my library copy today and ordering myself my own copy online - I can't imagine not reading this book again!(less)

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Feb 19, 2008 Debra rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 resulting p...more

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Oct 04, 2007 Lanai Bayne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

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 being tortured. I...more

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Apr 07, 2009 Ruby rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 and your independence. after a while you start throwin...more 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 and your independence. after a while you start throwing people out - your friends, everyone you used to know. and it's still not enough. the lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it's going to take you down with it. i've seen that happen to a lot of girls here. i think that's why i'm sick of love." because most loves are disparately requited.

page 87 - "fanatics always seem to have the same scrubbed and staring look about them. they have the look of people who do not masturbate, but who think about it almost all the time."

page 90 - "optimism is the first cousin of love, and it's exactly like love in three ways: it's pushy, it has no real sense of humour, and it turns up where you least expect it."

page 91 - "i think that's probably what love is - a way of earning the future."

page 99 - "wisdom is just cleverness with all the guts kicked out of it."

page 124 - "but i couldn't respond. my culture had taught me all the wrong things well. so i lay completely still, and gave no reaction at all. but the soul has no culture. the soul has no nations. the soul has no color or accent or way of life. the soul is forever. the soul is one. and when the heart has its moment of truth and sorrow, the soul can't be stilled. i clenched my teeth against the stars. i closed my eyes. i surrendered to sleep. one of the reasons why 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." ugh. how relentlessly and intolerably true.(less)

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Mar 01, 2009 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone

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

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Jul 10, 2011 Jsarno49 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 den, mansions...more

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About Gregory David Roberts

Грегори Дэвид Робертс

Gregory David Roberts is an Australian author, most noted for his novel Shantaram. He was a heroin addict and convicted bank robber who escaped from Pentridge Prison and fled to India where he lived for ten years.

Roberts lived in Melbourne, Germany and France, and finally returned to Mumbai, where he set up charitable foundations to assist the city's poor with health care cove...more

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“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears.” — 322 people liked it

“Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them.” — 276 people liked it

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