Categorizing Gregory David Roberts' debut novel, Shantaram, might cause some confusion at the bookstore.
Part travelogue, part love letter, part autobiography, Shantaram is a vivid, entertaining but slightly grandiose tale of Lin, an ex-junkie and convicted robber who escapes from an Australian prison then hides in the most alien of places: the hot, filthy, decadent, seaside metropolis of Bombay.
Shantaram is no wide-eyed backpacker's Lonely Planet travel guide. Instead, it could double as a guidebook for a fugitive who needs to disappear, counterfeit passport in hand.
Or it could just be a fun read for someone committed enough to stay with this lengthy, impossibly heavy book.
Lin is introduced as he steps off a plane with a new identity. Only the punishing Bombay heat is there to greet him. He is instantly intrigued by the city just as it is by him. He is gawked at by locals for being a gora (white), and he can't get enough of the never-ending cacophony of the city's life pulse.
Prabaker, an energetic and sometimes irritating city guide, is the first to greet the newly free runaway. He also is one of the book's most innocent and refreshing characters. It is on one of his city tours — filled as much with slums as tourist sites — that Lin meets the mysterious green-eyed beauty Karla Saaranen.
Karla is Lin's love interest and his gateway to Bombay's underworld of German prostitutes, ruthless madams, corrupt police officers, deadly henchmen, Bollywood money launderers, Iranian smugglers and Afghani mafiosi.
It is under the stewardship of one such Afghani don and philosopher that Lin rises among the ranks of an underworld he struggles to moralize in maddeningly unnecessary philosophical passages. It is at these points that the book bogs down.
Despite occasional flubs, much is covered gracefully during the decade time span. Lin briefly lives in a 5,000-year-old village where he earns the name Shantaram, which means man of peace. He starts a medical clinic in a slum, gets beaten up countless times, fights with the mujahadeen in Afghanistan and acts in a few Bollywood films.
Roberts based much of the plot on his own life. He escaped from an Australian prison after being convicted of a string of robberies and spent 10 years hiding in India. Eventually, he was extradited, finished his 19-year term and wrote this book.
Roberts' behemoth is Bollywood-like in its strengths and flaws. Its visceral, cinematic descriptive beauty truly impresses. But Hollywood, not Bollywood, has snapped up this tale, and Johnny Depp has signed on to produce and star in the film.
Although Shantaram gives too much of itself, its redemption lies in its bleeding-heart love letter to a Bombay few ever see.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2004-11-17-shantaram_x.htm