Shantaram
Shantaram. It is a name meaning “man of peace”. It’s a book. A very long book. A 936 page book. By Gregory David Roberts. A very long book. And worth every delicious moment spent reading.
It’s an amazing mix of thriller, drama, memoir, cultural immersion, love story, criminal methodology, big thoughts, and little ones, too.
Our lovely mortgage officer, Dinika, loaned it to Jamie & I. This was a while back. Jamie read it right away; I, didn’t. I admit it, I was daunted by the book’s physical heft; a book you could kill someone with. But finally, I started. Now I’m just past the halfway mark and loving each and every one of its many pages. It’s an amazing ride, a wonderful education; a tome to savour.
What’s it about? Briefly, it’s a novel about a man who escapes from an Australian maximum security prison (where he has been justly jailed for various criminal offences) who’s run from the law takes him eventually to India. Bombay/Mumbai to be exact. There he meets a cast of characters from ex-pats from across the globe, to make-shift slum dwellers, to Mafia kings. And his life is changed. Boy, that really doesn’t sound interesting. But really it is. It is phenomenal.
The author, Mr. Roberts, is a man who escaped from an Australian maximum security prison (where he had been justly jailed for various criminal offences) who’s run from the law took him eventually to India. Bombay/Mumbai to be exact. There he met a cast of characters from ex-pats from across the globe, to make-shift slum dwellers, to Mafia kings. And his life was changed.
I’m anxious to see where he and the character wind up. So back to reading I go.
Nite,
k.
**Two things, while digging up the links for this piece, I discovered that the novel is in film pre-production; starring and produced by Johnny Depp. I have mixed feelings about this. While I understand the desire to film this story, it is an amazingly visual piece, I worry that even a longish film won’t do the story justice. I would much prefer to see it done as a BBC mini-series. While it wouldn’t reach the mass audience that a “major motion picture” would, it would allow the tale to take its time, unfold as it should. Just compare the TV & film versions of, for example, The Singing Detective, TV/film or The Lives and Loves of a She Devil, TV/film (as simply, She Devil, to witness what a vast difference an extended time-frame can make. I hope it comes out well.
Also, I thought I should mention that when I link to amazon or any other such selling entity, I’m doing so only to help ya along should you wish to seek out the whatever for yourself. There’s no payback on this end other than the joy of spreading the word of things I like.
Nite,
k.
