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severuspls 's review for:
The Mountain Shadow
by Gregory David Roberts
The Mountain Shadow... where to begin.
As a sort of sequel to Shantaram, this inherently book has a lot to live up to. I think, if Shantaram is the book Roberts needed to write, a brilliant work on auto-fiction about some tumultuous years in his life, then TMS is the book he wanted to write to try his hand at pure fiction. Maybe some of the events in this book were based on his experiences, but as a whole, it felt like an episodic drama, sort of like a soap, drama for the sake of it at times.
There is something very likeable about this book, it definitely didn't need to be so long, but it was charming in its own way. Roberts puts feelings into words quite succinctly, at times. There were some quotes in the first half that I really liked. For example:
"‘It’s just that I want a special now, one that’s mine, instead of a constant now, that I constantly share with someone else’s now.’"
However, the aphorisms were a bit much. There were aphorisms and cliched metaphors dotted throughout the 900 pages of this book, but particularly at the end of chapters Roberts would throw a few out there to round things off. I like that there was a scene where he sort of pokes fun at the excessive use of aphorisms, it comes across as if the author is quite self aware and therefore confident in his style. It also marries well with the heavy philosophical overtones throughout, not that I cared for that particularly, but at least it made sense.
If you read Shantaram and you're considering reading this book as a 'sequel', I think you could skip it. I would reccomend you read this book if you really like pondering philosophical ideas - broadly, not so much in detail - and are alright with heavy use of metaphors and axioms. Also if you like an episodic style of drama, you might enjoy this book. It's almost 900 pages, it'll keep you company for a while.
I feel really strange rating this 3 stars since it's been with me for a while and I feel like I got more out of it than a 3 star rating would suggest. But given the issues I had with it combined with how enjoyable it was to read, anything more than a 3 star rating is too high.
As a sort of sequel to Shantaram, this inherently book has a lot to live up to. I think, if Shantaram is the book Roberts needed to write, a brilliant work on auto-fiction about some tumultuous years in his life, then TMS is the book he wanted to write to try his hand at pure fiction. Maybe some of the events in this book were based on his experiences, but as a whole, it felt like an episodic drama, sort of like a soap, drama for the sake of it at times.
There is something very likeable about this book, it definitely didn't need to be so long, but it was charming in its own way. Roberts puts feelings into words quite succinctly, at times. There were some quotes in the first half that I really liked. For example:
"‘It’s just that I want a special now, one that’s mine, instead of a constant now, that I constantly share with someone else’s now.’"
However, the aphorisms were a bit much. There were aphorisms and cliched metaphors dotted throughout the 900 pages of this book, but particularly at the end of chapters Roberts would throw a few out there to round things off. I like that there was a scene where he sort of pokes fun at the excessive use of aphorisms, it comes across as if the author is quite self aware and therefore confident in his style. It also marries well with the heavy philosophical overtones throughout, not that I cared for that particularly, but at least it made sense.
If you read Shantaram and you're considering reading this book as a 'sequel', I think you could skip it. I would reccomend you read this book if you really like pondering philosophical ideas - broadly, not so much in detail - and are alright with heavy use of metaphors and axioms. Also if you like an episodic style of drama, you might enjoy this book. It's almost 900 pages, it'll keep you company for a while.
I feel really strange rating this 3 stars since it's been with me for a while and I feel like I got more out of it than a 3 star rating would suggest. But given the issues I had with it combined with how enjoyable it was to read, anything more than a 3 star rating is too high.