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3.91 AVERAGE
3.91 AVERAGE
I started reading "Sacred Games" only after watching its popular Netflix adaptation. And it's a good thing I did, since this 2006 epic thriller by Vikram Chandra is hard to put down despite its 900+ pages. The TV series had either good or bad characters but in the book, protagonist Sartaj Singh is as nuanced and flawed a character as mobster Ganesh Gaitonde. I like what did the show creators did with originally blink-and-you-miss-them parts such as Kukoo, but the novel is packed with a vast array of characters that transform Mumbai city into a living, heaving mass. I will watch upcoming seasons of the Netflix series, but it will be hard for a show to match Chandra's craft and the sheer scale of his magnum opus. Highly recommended.
I read most of this book during a two week trip to India at the start of 2018. While I didn't travel to Bombay (Mumbai), where this novel is set, reading Vikram Chandra during the vacation reinforced the gritty feel of India's teeming streets in the cities that I did visit - something that I would describe as both a feast and an assault on the senses.
Here's how he describes Bombay in one passage:
This crime novel traces the lives of two characters: Ganesh Gaitonde, the most wanted gangster in India; and Inspector Sartaj Singh, a Sikh detective on the Mumbai police force who is trying to figure out why Gaitonde killed a woman and then committed suicide in a special "safe house"nuclear bunker in Mumbai.
I loved how Chandra depicted both of these characters, with wonderful details about what motivates them, why and where they seek companionship, and how they execute their individual crafts (criminal and detective). I also loved the dozens and dozens of minor characters woven through these pages. Most of all, I enjoyed reading a work of fiction that explored so many interesting parts of Indian history and culture, from Bollywood to the unfortunate caste system.
This is an epic tale, a great crime novel, and reader be forewarned, at 900 pages a long read! I do think it’s worth the time spent and I'll be looking for more books by Vikram Chandra down the road.
Here's how he describes Bombay in one passage:
[A]fter a year away from Mumbai I still got attacks of yearning, I craved the spittle-strewn streets of that great whore of a city, while waking up I felt that pungent prickling of auto-exhaust and burning rubbish at the back of my nostrils, I heard that swelling rumble of traffic heard from a high hotel rooftop, that far sound that made you feel like a king. When you were far away from the jammed jumble of cars, and the thickets of slums, and the long loops of rail, and the swarms of people, and the radio music in the bazaars, you could ache for the city. There were some afternoons when it felt like I was dying a little. Under the foreign sky I could feel my soul crumbling away, piece by piece. And I felt a loneliness I had never imagined, that I wouldn’t have earlier believed could exist.
This crime novel traces the lives of two characters: Ganesh Gaitonde, the most wanted gangster in India; and Inspector Sartaj Singh, a Sikh detective on the Mumbai police force who is trying to figure out why Gaitonde killed a woman and then committed suicide in a special "safe house"nuclear bunker in Mumbai.
I loved how Chandra depicted both of these characters, with wonderful details about what motivates them, why and where they seek companionship, and how they execute their individual crafts (criminal and detective). I also loved the dozens and dozens of minor characters woven through these pages. Most of all, I enjoyed reading a work of fiction that explored so many interesting parts of Indian history and culture, from Bollywood to the unfortunate caste system.
This is an epic tale, a great crime novel, and reader be forewarned, at 900 pages a long read! I do think it’s worth the time spent and I'll be looking for more books by Vikram Chandra down the road.
I am in a love hate relationship with this book. While reading I hated the feeling of "how does this fit together?" Then when I finished it and saw all the parts fit, I wanted to read it again. I do wish I had realized there was a glossary.
Epic, thoroughly absorbing, rich and evocative. The interwoven stories of the two main protagonists propel the reader along. A host of interesting characters, and places you can hear and smell and taste. Loved it.
Imposing -- but completely engrossing. Truly felt like Chandra created an entire world with this book, and I was said to leave it when I finished.
I picked Sacred Games up after I saw the first season of the Netflix adaptation. The adaptation was gripping and ended with quite a cliffhanger, so I had to immediately go find the book. Coincidentally, around the time I started reading this, we happened to acquire a signed first edition hardcover of this for a measly 12$.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that the novel is a much larger, sprawling beast when compared against the adaptation. The essence of both is the same - both are rich character studies of not only Sartaj and Gaitonde, but also the city of Bombay. The book eschews the cliffhangers and the heart racing action, for a more slow burn of a build up. It takes its time, slowly unfolds the world of Bombay' s underbelly, and paints an incredibly detailed portrait of the various characters. This character development is not restricted to the main players - we get deep dives into the lives of seemingly unimportant characters, long segues into back stories of characters who do not contribute to the core plot. This is not a bad thing, as this is exactly what makes the book tick, and prevents it from becoming a novelized version of 16th December. However, the thing that surprised me, and bothered me to some extent, is that the female characters who *are* central to the tale - Anjali Mathur, Mary Mascarenhas - do not get quite as much spotlight as they should have.
The book also chooses to not paint the central characters in complete black or white. For instance, Sartaj was once an honest cop, but the jaded, middle-aged version of him has seen it all in his years on the police force. He takes bribes, uses the threat and the violence of the police uniform to get things done, and in the end, pulls off an unlikely betrayal to prevent the looming catastrophe.
I don't have much to say about the core plot which is definitely thrilling. The specter of a nuclear bomb haunts the pages in the second half of the book, but it rarely takes the center stage. At some points, it does feel like Chandra decided to go down far too many alleyways than was needed to tell a good story (for instance, most "Inset" chapters could have been safely purged from the book), but this is not a dealbreaker and in no way detracts from the rest of the book.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that the novel is a much larger, sprawling beast when compared against the adaptation. The essence of both is the same - both are rich character studies of not only Sartaj and Gaitonde, but also the city of Bombay. The book eschews the cliffhangers and the heart racing action, for a more slow burn of a build up. It takes its time, slowly unfolds the world of Bombay' s underbelly, and paints an incredibly detailed portrait of the various characters. This character development is not restricted to the main players - we get deep dives into the lives of seemingly unimportant characters, long segues into back stories of characters who do not contribute to the core plot. This is not a bad thing, as this is exactly what makes the book tick, and prevents it from becoming a novelized version of 16th December. However, the thing that surprised me, and bothered me to some extent, is that the female characters who *are* central to the tale - Anjali Mathur, Mary Mascarenhas - do not get quite as much spotlight as they should have.
The book also chooses to not paint the central characters in complete black or white. For instance, Sartaj was once an honest cop, but the jaded, middle-aged version of him has seen it all in his years on the police force. He takes bribes, uses the threat and the violence of the police uniform to get things done, and in the end, pulls off an unlikely betrayal to prevent the looming catastrophe.
I don't have much to say about the core plot which is definitely thrilling. The specter of a nuclear bomb haunts the pages in the second half of the book, but it rarely takes the center stage. At some points, it does feel like Chandra decided to go down far too many alleyways than was needed to tell a good story (for instance, most "Inset" chapters could have been safely purged from the book), but this is not a dealbreaker and in no way detracts from the rest of the book.
A sweeping narrative of human struggles on a grand scale. Really gives you a sense of what living in Mumbai is like but, better yet, helps you understand what growing up and living in India feels like.
Switched to paperback and started again. So far so good.....
Exactly a month to finish this 900 page monster. I am so glad I gave this novel another go as it was amazing. A very complex story with a huge number of characters and numerous locations and time periods. It didn't take too long before it was easy enough to follow and it became too compelling to put down.
Exactly a month to finish this 900 page monster. I am so glad I gave this novel another go as it was amazing. A very complex story with a huge number of characters and numerous locations and time periods. It didn't take too long before it was easy enough to follow and it became too compelling to put down.
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"Sacred Games" is a sprawling thing that tries to be a noir detective story, a bookish equivalent of the action thriller, and a Dickens-scale state-of-India novel, all in one go. It reads as two alternating and quite loosely connected novellas, interspersed with a sprinkling of short stories that are related to but fairly tangential to the action of the two central stories. Although any given portion of the book is well-written and lively enough, the cumulative effect of so much material can be a bit of a test of patience.
Although it certainly offers an interesting glimpse into Indian police and criminal culture, "Sacred Games" is held back a bit by its eagerness to teach us about how things work in India. Chandra alleges an endemic level of petty corruption in the Bombay police establishment, and I have no reason to doubt him. For his characters to be continually mulling over the nature of this corruption, however, feels a bit unnatural, and Chandra is not always able to resist letting his fiction turn into something like expose'.
This tendency of characters to relate to their world in ways that seem unnaturally educational is not restricted to police sociology. At one point late in the book, an Indian character speaks at considerable length about how he feels about American films. This interlude did nothing to advance the story or to develop the character; indeed, it seemed to be there only to teach me what American films look like from an Indian point of view. Interesting? You bet! But a bit disruptive to the story's integrity.
Not at all a bad read, "Sacred Games" is however nowhere near brisk enough to make a fully satisfying genre novel and is just a bit too self-conscious and didactic to fully succeed as a capital-N novel. Not recommended for slow or impatient readers.
2025: None of the above bothered me at all on the re-reading; I'm more impressed by the epic sweep of the thing and the well-crafted meshing of its many moving parts. I kind of love that the central plot line, for as intensely melodramatic as it might be, is eventually resolved with a realistic minimum of fuss. I'm surprised I only give it three-stars the first time around; I'd give it five now except I have a rule that I can only promote or demote by a single star. Rules is rules.
Although it certainly offers an interesting glimpse into Indian police and criminal culture, "Sacred Games" is held back a bit by its eagerness to teach us about how things work in India. Chandra alleges an endemic level of petty corruption in the Bombay police establishment, and I have no reason to doubt him. For his characters to be continually mulling over the nature of this corruption, however, feels a bit unnatural, and Chandra is not always able to resist letting his fiction turn into something like expose'.
This tendency of characters to relate to their world in ways that seem unnaturally educational is not restricted to police sociology. At one point late in the book, an Indian character speaks at considerable length about how he feels about American films. This interlude did nothing to advance the story or to develop the character; indeed, it seemed to be there only to teach me what American films look like from an Indian point of view. Interesting? You bet! But a bit disruptive to the story's integrity.
Not at all a bad read, "Sacred Games" is however nowhere near brisk enough to make a fully satisfying genre novel and is just a bit too self-conscious and didactic to fully succeed as a capital-N novel. Not recommended for slow or impatient readers.
2025: None of the above bothered me at all on the re-reading; I'm more impressed by the epic sweep of the thing and the well-crafted meshing of its many moving parts. I kind of love that the central plot line, for as intensely melodramatic as it might be, is eventually resolved with a realistic minimum of fuss. I'm surprised I only give it three-stars the first time around; I'd give it five now except I have a rule that I can only promote or demote by a single star. Rules is rules.
I slogged my way through the full 900 pages to see how it finished. I should have DNF'd this at 100 pages just read the last chapter to satisfy my bit of curiosity as to the ending. Flashback format is a favorite of mine but I was bogged down by unfamiliar vocabulary (there is a glossary in the back but how much flipping to the back does want to do when trying to read for entertainment?) and couldn't help but feel I was missing key points.