Martin answers “I am nearly at page 100 and I am really...”

Anne Earley asked this question about Shantaram:

I am nearly at page 100 and I am really not enjoying this book! This is disconcerting as everyone else raves about it! Is it me or is the book? Should I persevere?

Martin Shantaram. This is a real Bollywood film of a book. Written as if shot in 900-page widescreen, it is opulently orchestrated, a whopper of a story, bes…moreShantaram. This is a real Bollywood film of a book. Written as if shot in 900-page widescreen, it is opulently orchestrated, a whopper of a story, besotted with love and rhythm and violence, brimming with colour, humour, drugs and spice, also teeming with the warmest, strangest, magically fated human encounters.

The tale is quite literally a "movie", its narrator (and author) being an ex-convict who fled Australia via New Zealand to work for the Indian Mafia anywhere between Kinshasa and Kandahar, but based in and thoroughly enchanted by the Metropolis of Bombay. Here the story is squarely placed on the city's shady or squalid side.

Though packed with action, this is also a look behind the mirror. The author is something of a stream-of-consciousness poet, a loquacious enthusiast with a penchant for hippy philosophy, also romanticizing what should be an outrage. Even so, after ever so much flower power he never fails to turn a phrase so deftly, that any self-respecting singer-songwriter would want to steal just that.

To give thanks to this author I now need to learn the Indian-style head-wiggle. I should also thank the Australian and Indian penitentiary systems for not quite killing him off.

I am still pretty divided on that weird book. If you are a conscientious reader, goodness me, you will not like it.

I just realized I have a favourite book. Scott Turow's Personal Injuries. I pretty much fell in love with all the characters in that book, even though none of them were asking for it. In Shantaram, all the characters are begging. But I understand the author was enchanted by his personal experience, Survival as a fugitive will do that to you.(less)

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