Customer Reviews

Sacred Games

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This big, juicy novel exuberantly thrusts the reader into modern India like no other I've read. Although the story moves as fast as any successful thriller, and the plot careens energetically in many directions, it's all headed to one deeper place: to examine if the way we act in the world reflects who we are inside, or is an assumed, learned response to the circumstances we experience. With that difficult task in hand, Chandra, a master raconteur, tells the intertwining stories of two men, who should not, on the face of it, have much in common.

Ganesh Gaitonde is a small-time crook who becomes the biggest Hindu mob boss in India. A street kid with no resources but his own wits, he evolves into a violent, immoral, spoiled man/boy who is protected and catered to by his band of dependent henchmen. He is as fascinating for his acts of unthinking bloodshed and revenge as he is for his sentimental generosity; for his naive delusion that he can produce the perfect Bollywood action movie, as he is by his blind devotion to a renowned holy man.

His story is laid side-by-side that of Sartaj Singh, a Sikh police officer in Mumbai. Singh is carrying the heavy mantle of a respected father who has preceded him on the force, a feeling of ennui about much of his daily grind, and a failed marriage. When Singh becomes the unwitting ear to Gaitonde's last words, and oversees the discovery of Gaitonde's body following his bizarre suicide, Singh is dragged into Gaitonde's sphere whether he wants to be there or not. We are captivated as Gaitonde posthumously recounts his autobiography and Singh tries to determine if Gaitonde's influence over India had grown from grossly criminal to internationally threatening.

This is a novel full of surprises, humor, bravura set pieces, and a plethora of Hindi profanity. We are treated to the sights, sounds and smells of Bombay, which is truly its own lush character in the book. But more than that, Sacred Games is a delicious head-first dive into words, deftly used not only to tell a good story, but to plumb the contradictory depths of human nature.

I rushed out and bought this book after I heard the author interviewed on NPR because it sounded like a great novel to read before my first trip to India. Unfortunately, my flight time came before I'd finished its nearly 1000 pages. By that time, it had hooked me so thoroughly that I HAD to know how it came out; I couldn't just leave it at home. So, gods help me, I dragged it along.

This is one honkin' heavy book, believe me. I was afraid that its weight might tip my suitcase over the rather meager limit for in-India flights, so I carried it the whole time in my hand luggage. Now, a week after coming home, my shoulder's still out of joint.

But I can definitely say, it added more to my understanding of the country than any of the travel literature I read.

It's a big Bollywood mess of a book--and I mean that in the nicest sense. Lots of intriguing characters, mystery, romance, big moustaches, the odd wedding, a virtuous mother, even music. Subplots and histories abound, woven deftly into the present action. Chandra has made his shady policemen, his corrupt politicians, his grasping and clawing would-be actresses, even his murderers, all sympathetic in spite of their actions. It's a long, rambling love letter to Mumbai, and yes, it's a complicated book. But Mumbai is a complicated city in a very complicated country; the scope (and the heft) of the novel feels perfect for the task it undertakes.

Don't be intimidated by the foreign vocabulary. Once you decide to take the unfamiliar words in context--hint: most of them are either profanities or song lyrics--and stop skipping to the dictionary in back, you'll find yourself immersed.

Susan O'Neill, author, Don't Mean Nothing: Short Stories of Viet Nam

It's story time...

Mr. Chandra is obsessed with stories. One could argue that this is a quality inherent in all authors, but it is especially true in this case. While some authors dote on their characters and still others focus on the prose, it appears that Chandra's foremost goal is to keep the reader trapped in a tale, and another, and yet another until the reader is utterly disoriented but also strangely satisfied. We saw this in Red Earth and Pouring Rain, where the reader descended through level after level of storytelling and was then warped back to the present at hyper-speed. In Love and Longing in Bombay we read 5 stories on distinct emotional levels, but each interesting and engaging.

Sacred Games combines the breadth and scope of Red Earth and Pouring Rain with the realism of Love and Longing in Bombay and the result is a work of the quality that many observers felt Chandra was capable of.

At its most superficial level Sacred Games is the story of Mumabi police inspector Sartaj Singh's investigation into the bizarre murder-suicide of underworld mobster Ganesh Gaitonde. Along the way Chandra paints a vivid picture of crime fighting in India, including the corruption, scandal, and backroom deals all for a greater good. As one of Chandra's characters puts it, Mumbai's policemen are good men who are forced to be bad to prevent the worst men from taking power. However the main storyline makes up a small fraction of this nearly nine-hundred page marathon, there are numerous stories within the story that keep the book fresh.

Most notable among these subplots is the story of Ganesh Gaitonde himself and how he rose to prominence in the Mumbai underworld. In this way Chandra allows us access to the devlopment of the criminal mentality, the reader is able to easily pick out the the formative events and circumstances in his life which led to his rise and fall.

Besides these two strands there are also several chapters termed "insets" by the author in which he is able to flesh out those characters which may not be directly integral to the plot but have an interesting backstory or some items in their past that reveal the slightest bit more to the reader. My favorite inset chronicles the life of an Indian intelligence officer, from his first meeting with Nehru to his many successes and finally to a vivid account of his mental failing and the frustration with it. During one of his mental lapses he recounts a bit of information that proves vital to Sartaj Singh's investigation and links the inset with the main plot.

It is useless to attempt to summarize a book of such scope, but the above provides a broad outline of what you can expect to encounter.

In Sacred Games, Chandra has crafted an epic piece of work which will hopefully recieve due recognition. Definitely worth your time and money.

Vikram Chandra's "Sacred Games" is the "best" Bombay book, whichever way you look at it. It is set in Bombay and it is about the great metropolis.

Bombay is probably the main character in this "tome" (900 pages and 7 years in the making), which is at first difficult to penetrate, but completely addictive and rewarding once, you go past the 200 page mark.

What makes the book difficult to penetrate is the profusion of characters and the confusing at first-plot structure. (and to readers not from Bombay, the language. Chandra uses bombay street slang (which itself is derived from a multitude of languages and is its own "bambaiya" dialect) without your usual italics or a useful glossary as an annexure.) (The american edition, i understand carries a glossary)

The book is at core a love song to the Bombay which the author loves, but works on multiple levels. Firstly, it works as a solid piece of Victorian fiction. Not as much a "whodunit", as a "why they did what they did" . Secondly, it is a deep introspection of the changing nature of that wondrous megapolis, which nurtures and nourishes its many economic immigrants. Religion, the Underworld, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Bollywood,the glitterati etc etc, are covered by the broad canvas of this novel which spans from pre independence India to the present day.

Granted, that not all the side stories and minor characters pay off or add to the overall narrative (some of the insets are frankly self-indulgent), but that is but a minor blemish in a book which gives you a character as accomplished and complete as Ganesh Gaitonde.

Ganesh Gaitonde- the "don", the "rags to riches"- it can happen only in bombay phenomenon, the taker of boys, the ravager of women, a connoisseur of Bollywood cinema, the self-learned street fighter, the at once dangerous impulsive, globe trotting, central character. It is apparent that Gaitonde has been invested with the 7 years of research and an infinite supply of humanity. This is a fiction character which will surely stay with you.

In comparison, Sartaj Singh, the 40 year old, divorced cop,pales, but only slightly. Sartaj is the unwitting hero, in this novel, where all the characters are painted "pale grey" at best.

Some of the other characters which Chandra creates, from jojo - the madam, to Katekar, Sartaj's constable are indeed Bombay characters of our times.

Bollywood plays a huge role in this book as well. From the aspiring actress, Zoya Mirza's rise to Gaitonde's boys discussing what a Mukesh, Mohammed Rafi and a Kishore Kumar ditty, stands for.

This is indeed a big, clamorous novel, very similar to Bombay where the sound of the crowds, the daily bump and grind, is its own sweet melody.

This is probably the best bombay book ever. Move over Rushdie...

Sacred Games

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a "good" read, a novel with a plot worth the investment of reading time and characters you come to care about. It is a good old-fashioned Dickens novel. I was initially interested in reading the book because it was about the criminal underworld in India (mysterious and exciting and something I knew nothing about). Other reviewers have explained the plot and for the first third of the book that kept me reading. Then my interest began to shift and I found myself coming to care more about the characters, wanting to understand their behavior, learn more about their past and to find out what happens to them. Unlike the normal thriller where the originality and complexity of the plot provides the action and reader momentum and the characters, usually simplistically drawn, are the "grease" that moves it smoothly along, here the characters' behavior drives the plot, providing a plot reality that is not black and white, good guys versus bad guys, and causes the reader to pause and think about humanity and what links people together. People in India are not different from people in the United States or the United Kingdom or Thailand. The language is different, the culture is different, but we are all linked in our search for love and connection. For me, that is the Sacred Game to which the title refers.

Fine reviews led me to this book, and I began with great anticipation. Gaitonde the crime lord is initially a fascinating character but later he seems to be a writer's manipulation rather than a genuine believable being. Singh, the detective, is, in my judgment underdrawn. Overall the 900-page book, despite some brilliant writing, is an unedited mass that could have benefitted from severe cutting. Have editors disappeared? Large chunks of the book struck me as irrelevant and contributed nothing to the advance of the story or to an understanding of Indian society. Ultimately, a major disappointment.

First, the good news: Vikram Chandra is a novelist down to the bones of his toes. He has talent, vision and ambition to burn. Like Dickens, like Balzac, he uses his powers of observation to put a prose bear hug on an entire society, in this case India. The major plot line of Hidden Games is a gangster tale, the rise and fall of Ganesh Gaitonde. It's reminiscent of Mario Puzo's The Godfather, but better written and more entertaining because Ganesh, a gangster who follows his own guru, is a more complex character than Don Corleone. If we had just been given Ganesh's tale, told by him and the police inspector, Sartaj Singh, who is tasked with figuring out why Ganesh killed himself and his female companion in the hidden bunker he'd built in the middle of Mumbai, we would have gotten our money's worth.

But there's another, even more ambitious story that crouches like a homunculus inside of Hidden Games. This is a darker tale about the India/Pakistan Partition, religious violence, espionage and nuclear terror. Some of the writing in these parts will stun you with its power. Unfortunately, even though Chandra tries to link this story to Ganesh's, the connection feels forced. Combining these two stories balloons the novel to over 900 pages. It's still worth reading, but would have been even better a third or so shorter.

Perhaps the political tale seemed too heavy, and describing Ganesh outwitting rival mobsters and cruising on his luxurious yacht and servicing the parade of multi-ethnic virgins supplied to him by his good friend Jojo was the author's way of lightening up the story. Or perhaps, as he's said in interviews, Chandra wanted us to understand that everything is connected in India, and the real story is the mashup of religion, money, movies, poverty, crime and political jostling. Whatever the rationale, his two stories coexist uneasily, and I wish Chandra had separated them into two novels.

I'd love to see a writer this talented and ambitious take on Mumbai the way Lawrence Durrell examined Alexandria in the four-volume Alexandria Quartet, or dissect Indian society over multiple but related volumes, similar to Balzac's approach to French society in La Comedie Humaine. Even for a writer this good, India is too vast, teeming and contradictory to nail down in one novel.

If you plan to read this novel, you should not read discussions of the plot, which will spoil the surprises and suspense that kept me going through nine-hundred pages. The length did not deter me, a devotee of REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, and many pressing duties were overlooked while I read on, fascinated.

This book came to me as a birthday present a month after my return from a two-week visit to India,with two days spent in Mumbai. To me the city was a frightening horror - insane traffic, relentless beggars, families sleeping on the sidewalks as crowds stepped over and around them. Everywhere throngs of people at all hours of the day and night. And HOT, even on New Year's Day. Yet individual Indians I met were charming.

Reading Vikram Chandra gives me a fuller and more nuanced picture, as have other talented Indian writers, and some insight I lacked at the time. For instance, a timely bribe of an Air India clerk might have forestalled the misery of a thirty-six hour delay in my return flight. Corruption is a neccessary way of life in a land where government workers and functionalries generally are not paid a living wage, and where family loyalty and connections far outweigh any sense of public service or the common good.

Vikram Chandra's gift is not for profound psychological observation, but he does create an interesting spectrum of Indian characters, from Brahamins to peasants, and especially the urban middle class, including the police and their collaborators, the criminals. He makes a seemingly far-fetched plot premise plausible and comprehensible. How Ganesh Gaitonde, who dies in the first chapter, narrates the greater portion of the book is never explained, and some elements of the sensational denoument seem unlikely to me, but improbabilities happen in real life every day, while the title hints at some larger, superhuman agency that is never explored or explained.

This book is an engrossing read, though I wish the glossary in the back translated more than the 25% of the unfamiliar words I encountered. It remains to be seen whether, like Proust's and other great novels, it is one that I return to an re-read.

Sacred Games is too complex for its own good. The main story line of Sartaj Singh and Ganesh Gaitonde is fantastic. It's all the "interwoven" story lines that interfere with the flow of the book. This book was a tough read in that it was hard work to maintain my interest. As soon as Chandra had me hooked he'd go off on a tangent again...for an entire chapter. And when I was hooked again...he'd go off on a tangent again...

There are better books about Mumbai (Bombay) out there...Shantaram and Maximum City.

As an American who enjoys Bollywood movies, and who is studying Hindi as a hobby, I delved enthusiastically into this book. I am a relative initiate into Indian culture who has never been to India, so the book did indeed have some exotic charm. Even for me however, the overwhelming amount of Hindi in the book (*most* of which is *not* in the glossary) was very distracting. Some of the writing is beautiful and startling, but, as has been noted, it is very uneven.

My main problems with this book are as follows. Editing might have helped.

1) The plot is too rambling and disjointed. The insets are interesting on their own but do not significantly contribute to an understanding of the characters. The resolution of the various plotlines is anticlimactic.

2) The characters are uneven too. Gaitonde (the gangster) is probably the best drawn, the Guru the least. I liked Sartaj and believed most of the characters, but something left me very empty at the end. That emptiness is my most lasting impression. For all the lush action and intrigue, there is something ultimately cynical and purposeless in this book's tone.

What I liked best were the stories within stories. As a group they don't have a lot of cohesion though. The Canterbury Tales this ain't.

I heard Vikram Chandra talk about this book and he spoke mostly about the inspiration of following Bombay gangsters like Dawood Ibrahim. When I approached him and asked about the overwhelming amount of foreign language in the book, he said that it was Hindi (and not Marathi) and that whatever I couldn't find in the back of the book could be found on his website's online glossary. I enjoyed parts of the experience of reading this book, but I don't think I'll be reading any more of Chandra's books soon.