If you need some deep pagan wisdom, this book will look into your heart and soul, and you will find what you are after. I hope to become a better writer someday, and that is best achieved through reading difficult books that are outside of my comfort zone. This is the second book in my life that truly tested me in my capabilities of digesting good literature. With both of them, there were times when I wanted to give up, but like all hard battles, the ones we see through to the end end up teaching us the most. Shantaram was like a marathon; if you look at each moment, page, or mile independently it is not heartbreaking, but to string it altogether would knock anyone on their feet. It is a truly compelling epic. It had the ability of balancing an impressive time span, rememberable characters, a smart plot, with enough heart to urge you further and enough fiction to leave you in suspended disbleif. A good book does not reveal the truth. Some stories are good enough just to be a fantastical story or a plot, but this book had the courage to make you feel the triumph and believe it too. The character development was genius because it isn’t revealed until the last page if Shantaram is a tragic hero or not. By the end of it, I no longer wished it to be over. Nevertheless, I found myself at periods trying just to turn the page so I could get it over with. This book really is about the journey rather than the ending. I was humbled by the end of the story because of the literary talent of the author. I could not write this book. No one who hasn’t lived in India could convey a culture as well as Gregory David Roberts does. It is a perfect example of how race should not define what a story can be about. Although it is not technically a difficult book (if you can have the patience to read a 1,000-page novel), it is deep and deserves, like most great pieces of literary art, to be reread. There was a single plot point that went over my head and it made me feel like I should burn the damn thing for outsmarting me, and outsmart me, it did. The only flaw is somewhere along the adventure it begins to take the story a little too seriously, but it does not make it any less enjoyable. I found the most enjoyable parts of culture shock and transition of living in Bombay that Shantaram encounters in the beginning, rather than crime-ridden navigation towards the end. This book does not have much ego and all of it is profound in many ways. The tone is serious but light, and you may find yourself moved to embrace the little things in life since many, many events build this love-story to India.
89/100
Ben Bonkoske 