Shantaram (Roberts)

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Shantaram:

1. Although Gregory David Roberts refers to Shantaram as a "novel," what do you make of the fact that its events are based on his own life? Does that knowledge make the story more interesting, more powerful? How does it affect the way you view the primary character Lin?

2. What would you most like to ask Roberts if you were to meet him? 

3. In an interview Roberts says,

I don’t believe that there are Good men or Bad men. I believe that the deeds we do are Good and Bad, not the men and women who commit them.... I’ve known mafia men who took responsibility for feeding the poor in their district, and I’ve known cops who were ruthlessly cruel. We human beings are just that—human animals with the capacity to do Good or to do Bad—and we all do both, to a greater or lesser degree.

What do you think of his remark, and how is his philosophy expressed in the novel? Are there good and bad characters in Shantaram—or characters who do good and bad things? What about your own life—"good" and "bad" people...or actions?

4. According to Roberts, one of the novel's major themes is loneliness—through exile and alienation. How does Roberts use islands, a central image throughout the novel, to represent his theme? Consider Bombay itself (known as the Island City) or Leopold's Beer Bar (referred to frequently as an island). What other islands, literal and figurative, can you indentify in Shantaram? How do they work as images of exile and alienation?

5. Lin comes to India as an exile, already set apart from the villagers with their profound sense of belonging. How do Lin's experiences change him, gradually rescuing him from his isolation. Consider, for instance, the two different taxi accidents—and Lin's two different responses. What else and who else help Lin overcome his alienation—from himself, from humanitiy, from a sense of meaning in his life?

6. What draws Lin to Khader Khan? Does Lin's connection with the mafia don alleviate—or exacerbate—his isolation? Consider his emotional bond with Khader Khan, but also his moral alienation as he reverts to a life of crime.

7. Love represents the only real hope for escaping exile and alienation. There is love between Lin and Karla. What other forms of love occur in Shantaram? Who else experiences love?

8. Events occur twice in the novel, like the two taxi accidents mentioned in Question 5. There are other parallel events and character relationships—what Roberts has referred to as the story's "house of mirrors." Here are several mirror examples:

floods — secret staircases — face "amputations"— wedding parties — the green scarf and green banner — Ulla and Khaled (both have sold themselves to survive) —Mourizio and Aabdul Ghani — Karla and Lisa Carter

Find other "mirrors," and talk about how each pair reflects one another. Roberts says the mirrors represent the self-referential nature of the universe itself. You might also think of them as symbolic of the deep connectedness within all of life.

9. Talk about the novel's many characters: why you like or dislike them—admire them or find them abhorrent. Does Roberts present them as complex individuals, or as one-dimensional cartoon-type characters? What do you think about the author's frequent references to eyes, for instance, as a sort of shorthand method of characterization. Does that device work? 

10. Some reviewers find Roberts' prose style heavy-handed, even silly, bordering on the purple prose of cheap romance stories. Others find the prose lush, vibrant, and compelling. Can you find examples of either style? Overall, what is your opinion of Roberts' prose?

11. What about the book's ending? Do you see it as hopeful? Has Lin found...or will he find...redemption?

12. Shantaram represents the second work (though the first published) in a planned trilogy. Are you inspired by this work to read the other installments once they are published?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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