The Mountain Shadow: Shantaram, Book 2

Shantaram has been one of my favorite books I have read so I couldn't wait to get to the 2nd part of the story. The beloved characters return but there is a lot of dialogue in this book, almost like a screenplay. As soon as I got used to the different format, the philosophical discourses were very interesting, thought-provoking, and enjoyable. It felt a bit long-winded at times but was a great read nevertheless.

This is the sequel to Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. I enjoyed the first book and delayed buying The Mountain Shadow because I wasn't sure what it could say. I finally ordered it a few years later and enjoyed the continuation of the characters in Shantaram and what happened to them as time went on. These are big books and you should read Shantaram first. These are adventure stories about Mumbai (Bombay) India. I have been to India on a three week trip and spent time in five areas of India including Mumbai. It is a fascinating country.

I could not put this book down. It is an amazing work of fiction based on the personal story of the author. It is the follow up book to his first wonderful text, Shantaram. Both are over 900 pages each and totally absorbing and inspiring. This writer is also a poet, polyglot, and humorist. He is able to laugh about his various clashes with the caste system, corruption, and a deep love. At the same time he is a critic and interpreter of daily conflict and the meaning of love. As you read this book, you come to care about every character in their madness and eccentricity and want to be there in Bombay in the 1980’s. The author loves India and India is actually a key character since it is by living and loving in Bombay he comes to resolve the major conflict in his life. I will keep this book to reread it with gratitude for so skilled a story and by extension so skilled a writer.

Let's begin at the beginning: This book is not Shantaram. It will not be Shantaram part two. If you read it expecting it to be Shantaram, you will be one of the many disappointed fans. But if you read it with the understanding that it is an entirely different book that just happens to have some of the same characters, you will find it mostly enjoyable.If Shantaram was a painting, Mountain Shadow is a pop song. Other reviewers have noted that it relies heavily on dialogue - and this becomes problematic for a few reasons. If Mountain Shadow were a movie, then the smart-assed, quick-whip lines would be a lot of fun. But in a book, they read amateurish: the ellipses (ie. "O...kay", "And...so?"), and repetitive broken thoughts (ie. "I-- " inserted in between lines, when a character begins a thought but doesn't finish it, multiple times).I hesitate to call it lazy - that sounds harsh - but a book is supposed to set up the tone of the conversation thru prose; it's supposed to *tell*, rather than just show. By contrast, a film should show rather than tell ... But you're not writing a film, GDR!Also mostly gone from the dialogue are the accented agrammatisms that give a cultural context to the language: the book is written in English - but English isn't everybody's first language in the story, na? Shantaram included intentional peculiarities of how an Indian would speak English, whereas Mountain Shadow often fails to make it clear when English is being spoken vs Hindi/etc. It makes everybody seem like a clever native speaker, cleverly firing their clever lines. And it's done at the expense of nuanced character development. After a while, they all sound the same.Another issue with the dialogue is that it's often redundant: We would read a line of Lin narrating his thoughts, and then he'd repeat the same thought aloud as dialogue to a character. Why? And it happens way too often. This is something a good editor should have pointed out. I think GDR intends for this to be a stylistic choice, but honestly it reads a little arrogant.And speaking of redundant (and arrogant... and lazy) ... Where the dialogue *is* broken up by prose, the prose itself is often stiff, abridged, and too colloquial, like how a millennial would text "o man, that's crazy!" to just about everything, rather than reach for a descriptive narrative of the situation. When I recommended Shantaram to my friends (and I've actually bought copies as gifts), the word I used most often to describe it was "sumptuous." The city of Bombay came alive in smells and sights, in philosophy and metaphor. But the Bombay of Mountain Shadow is distant and impersonal. Yes, a lot is changing around Lin, and perhaps GDR's decision to pull back from the tugging on his readers' heartstrings when he describes the Island City was intentional, to set a more menacing tone. But you know what? I didn't like it. There's a lot of action happening around, scenes skipping from one place to another often within a few short pages, and without the rich description I have don't have as much fun following that journey.One more thing to put out there: GDR isn't shy about killing off his characters, obviously. But in Shantaram, he made us fall in love with them first. In Mountain Shadow - partially because of all the violence and characters dropping like flies every few chapters, and partially because of the lack of rich prose - I found myself growing numb to it all. Several important Shantaram characters were killed off in the middle of the novel, after making only a brief appearance at the start, and their death seemed random, like GDR didn't know what to do with them so he killed them off. He seemed not to care about them, and that was evident in the jumpy brevity of the revelation of their deaths. Even toward the very end, when a beloved Shantaram character dies, I didn't feel it as much.You guys should know, it takes 300 pages for Karla to finally show up ... And when she does, the action kinda gets going. All the stuff before that seems like prelude, like Lin is sleep-walking thru life... Which he is! But GDR, come on! WE are not supposed to be sleep-reading thru it!!!I understand GDR was in a different place in his life when he wrote Mountain Shadow than Shantaram, but the book read a little like he was giving up; like he had a screenplay going in his head rather than a novel.Some of the things I did enjoy very much? The philosophical meditations in the chapters with Idriss. In fact, if GDR wrote an entire novel expanding on these philosophies and their origins, I'd read that (and, I think he is). And I'd probably read a follow up to the Lin story, too, if it ever happens... But I would like less smart-assery and more substance.As a fan, I also bought the ebook that has a bunch of extras (deleted scenes and dialogues, illustrations, poems, etc). NOTE: THE KINDLE VERSION SOLD ON AMAZON IS NOT THE ONE WITH THE BONUS MATERIAL. THAT EBOOK IS ONLY AVAILABLE THRU GDR's WEBSITE.And I loved all the bonus stuff, and especially applaud GDR for including the earlier versions of a chapter to illustrate its progression. As someone who writes, I feel rarely brave enough to show a finished work, nevermind an earlier draft. It takes a lot of courage to do that, folks. Thank you, GDR, that was a treat!

There are books that should not be allowed to end. The Lord of the Rings is one of them. I know that Middle Earth continues on without me and I want to be there."Shantaram" by Gregory David Roberts is another. When I finished the 944 page book I was disappointed. I wanted more. I didn't want to leave the Island City of Bombay.A little research revealed that a sequel would be released in October of 2015. "The Mountain Shadow" came out as promised on October 13th. All 912 pages of it. It did not disappoint.Once again, I am reluctant to leave this world. I read as slowly as I could (which, unfortunately, is still very fast). The book is excellent. Rather than call it a sequel, I would call it a second half. Yes, "Shantaram" will stand on its own. But "The Mountain Shadow" completes it and adds even more nuances to themes that were touched on in the first book.It's hard to classify these books. Spiritual? Philosophical? Action/adventure? Romance? Life in Bombay slums or mafia? Yes. ALL of that. And something else that's hard to describe the best I can do is say that Gregory David Roberts has a lyrical style of writing that is as intoxicating and, I fear, addicting as the pure heroin used by some of his characters.

If you loved shantaram you will love this

Ho acquistato il libro in quanto ho molto amato il precedente, qui c’è lo sforzo di introdurre i personaggi a chi non ha letto Shantaram, diventa un po’ noioso per chi cercava uno sviluppo più veloce. Non molto accattivante purtroppo.

This was a fantastic book on its own and just that much better had you already read Shantaram. Other than more about the intricacies of big-city living in India, it was a wonderful love story as well. I highly recommend this one for any serious reader. Do note, that like Shantaram, this one too is long (877 pages) but worth all of it.

OK, let me just say that Shantaram is one of my all time favourite books. Not only did I love it but everyone I recommended it to, male & female, thought it was brilliant.I also immensely enjoyed The Mountain Shadow but it is a very different book. It is much more of a 'bloke's' book, focussing on the central character's exploits as a gangster in Mumbai.There are still some wonderful insights into India and Indian life but underlying everything is the menace of the Mumbai underworld.

Love this story as I loved Shanteram. A favourite