by Gregory David Roberts, 2003, St. Martin’s Press, New York

I honestly don’t know what to think about this book.  There were times when I thought I was reading the best work of literature ever created.  At other times, I felt that the author was blathering platitudes.  One thing I will say is that I thought it was authentic; if what the author says is true, he lived a lot of this novel himself.

The highlights of the book, I think, are the vivid portrayal of life in India, espcially in the slums, and the emotions of a fugitive from justice, living on the run.  Also, the prose was pretty well constructed.  The sheer length of the book, however, seemed to detract from the entire work.  Every character in the book, no matter how minor, was described in detail.  Also, rather than building toward some kind of grand finale, the book seemed to stumble from one situation to another.  For example, in the last forty pages the story got sidetracked by a dancing bear that had to be smuggled out of Bombay in a disguise.  While this side story may have held my interest earlier in the book, by the time I got to this point (about 890 pages) I was really looking at getting toward some kind of conclusion.

Did I mention the book was long?  Anyway, it was a pretty good read but could have been much better with a bit more disciplined story line and editing.