About this title: '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 ...
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Description: Good. } Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Very Good. 0312330537 **Softcover**--Exact ISBN Match--Cover has extremely minor shelf wear at tips of corners. No personalizations, writing or marks in the text. Clean, Tight and Neat. Absolutely no spine creasing. Ships Quickly-IN STOCK-Satisfaction Guaranteed! read more
Description: Acceptable. Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Umbriel
Date Published: 2006-10-05
ISBN-13:9788489367111ISBN:8489367116
Description: Fair. WITHDRAWN EX LIBRARY with usual markings, stickers, stampings-pages VERY GOOD no writing/no rips-doesn't appear to have been read- read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780312330521ISBN:0312330529
Description: Very Good. Light-to-normal shelf-wear. No markings of any kind. Very good. Small business. Personal service. Thanks for looking! : -) read more
Description: Very Good. 0312330529 Condition: VERY GOOD. (Book may have one or a combination of the following characteristics: former library book, cover wear, name written inside cover, light underlining/highlighting, remainder mark, etc. Overall, the book is in solid shape. This is a blanket description. Please email us if you require a specific, detailed description of the book condition. We will typically respond within one week of your request). read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Date Published: 2004-10-13
ISBN-13:9780312330521ISBN:0312330529
Description: Book is very good. It is in very good condition and it is free of inside markings. It has a small remainder mark. The dust cover also has some wear and a few small tears. Thank you! read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Umbriel
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9788489367111ISBN:8489367116
Description: New. No dust jacket as issued. 100% satisfaction guaranteed. No Remainder Mark, No Damage. Ship twice daily. Text in Spanish. Trade paperback (US). Sewn binding. 1141 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: New. Brand New Paperback, no spine or cover creases, clean, tight, unmarked, Still in original publishers shrink wrap Australie, 1980. Lin s'évade de prison et atterrit sous une fausse identité dans les rues fourmillantes de Bombay, où il espère disparaître. Il pénètre peu à peu le monde secret de "la ville dorée", où se côtoient prostituées et religieux, soldats et acteurs, mendiants et gangsters. Fugitif sans famille, Lin cherche inlassablement à donner un sens à sa vie, d'abord en ... read more
Edition: NEW ED
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: LITTLE, BROWN BOOK GROUP Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780349117546ISBN:0349117543
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 944 pages. (944 pages) this debut novel is based on the author's dramatic and extraordinary true story of life on the run in the bombay underworld. edition new ed (Paperback) read more
"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 particularly glaring example, referring to the author's time in prison:
"Every time we turn the key we twist the knife of fate, because every time we cage a man we close him in with hate."
I tried to look past these grotesque superfluities and let the book exist in my mind as a contemporary fluff piece, but I was overwhelmed at times. It's not that the book doesn't have its merits; the streets of Bombay, the city itself, is so well depicted that it is easily the most compelling character the book has to offer (no that that's saying much). I admit, I was mildly entertained. If the value of a book is to be judged by entertainment alone, Shantaram may be deemed by some to be worth the investment; just be prepared to knuckle down through some of the most excruciatingly horrid abuse of language I've seen in print for some time."
"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, a la Patrick Swayze in City of Joy, as if people who lived in slums sit around waiting for a white hero to come and save them.
BUT there were things I liked about the book (aside from the sweet friend who lent it to me). It is cushioned in so much love for India and its people. And while that love is sometimes really dramatic and poorly written (like when he ends each chapter with an epiphany or worse, the love scenes) you get the sense as the book moves on that he becomes more of an insider telling the story from inside and not from outside, which is incredibly admirable. How many white people do I know that would move to the slums of Bombay, learn Marathi, visit a village, fight street dogs, etc. etc. For those moments alone, I was glad to be reading 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 just about the most humane philosopher walking on the planet. But you know, he really sold his case, and it's true, I really did start pondering with him as I realized he is truly a lost man hurting to find his path, and I rooted for him on his journey quest. This is a beautiful book, with a ton of historical facts of that area, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan that is illuminating for what has come to transpire in the last decade. I found myself clearing time away so I could read this, and even *gasp* staying away from GR! The very ending fell just a bit flat for me, but I won't say why for fear of spoiling.
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