The best novel I had read set in contemporary India (until I discovered Shantaram which equals it). The daily Telegraph said it "Bursts at the seam with SEX, violence,corruption and death" and they are not far wrong. It also engages you in a mystery. Why would a local hoodlum build a shelter from a nuclear bomb. How will our policeman, who is quite low in the power pecking order, solve this case?

The descriptions of India ring very true and accord with (some of) my experience of living in Bombay in the 1970's. But much in this book goes way beyond my experience. Parts of this story are reminiscent of the early years in America of Puzo's The Godfather.

I haven’t read a “big book” in awhile, this was a good one to come back with. Deeply engaging, and it exposed me to a lot of cultural references and particulars of the Indian Subcontinent that I was unfamiliar with. The scope and pacing is well managed for a 960-page tome, and the coordination of storylines and threads is done well. It’s easy for a long book to be both slow and rushed, but this feels evenly distributed and the conclusions feel earned. Really liked it.

Wonderful.

it got off to a good start and i thought it was going to be a tasty, epic read. but the writing and characters turned cliche and trite after the first hundred pages, and remained that way until a single nice chapter at the end. not bad enough to stop reading, but not worth recommending.

4.9/5

My own life had taught me what was real, and I knew that what men can imagine, they can make real. And so I was terrified.

Out of all the books I've gone through in the last few years since I committed to having at least one 700+ page behemoth on my docket, this is likely the most casual. It was no trouble at all to crack it open at eleven at night after a full day of work and already completed reading load, not to mention my motivation for reading this when I did was the upcoming Netflix series. Then again, I first came across Chandra in my postcolonial short story class, and the vaunted name drops of Barth, Barthelme, and UC Berkley in the author's bio show that, while the theme may be crime and punishment, the narrative doesn't stint itself in accordance to genre conventions. A previous owner of my copy left a nasty note that basically called the book a ripped off mix between 'Go Set a Watchmen' and 'The Godfather', but that's white people for you. One would think that the adulation and 'Ulysses' and co. amongst a certain generation would have cultivate a sense for context to make up for the terms that aren't covered by the Hindi/Punjabi/etc glossary in the back, but that's the problem with certain members of the international audience. Even with English as the majority lingo, some expect to be spoon fed.

A reputation for ruthlessness can do wonders for peace.

Chandra's the rare author who respects characters whom are usually valued only for their narrative use, not for any intrinsic humanity on their own part. This contributes to the novel's length, especially during the last few humanizing passages regarding characters which the reader is typically trained to pass over and forget for the sake of narratological efficiency. This also accounts for my determination that the afterword's incorporated article's use of the word "Dicksensian" is rather slipshod, as while delving into the underworld may have been characteristic of that flat character flatulence, the treatment of each individual is all [a:Mary Ann Evans|173|George Eliot|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1396882294p2/173.jpg]. Every time I expected a lack of interiority, every time I assumed a facet of the story would be passed over in glancing due to gender or class or religion, Chandra would give at least five to fifteen pages in the so termed "Insets" that I came to look forward to the most as oceans between the two main characters, the Sikh policeman and the Hindu crime lord. That compassion that translates directly to to effort spent on a credible character, thus giving respect to the humans it is based on, is what I seek in any story, and coupled with a landscape I've never been to but hope to visit someday, this work was a pleasurable learning experience as well as an entertaining ride. The .1 of a star off comes from my lackluster reception of the solution to the second to most penultimate mystery, as misogyny is only as realistic as we enable it. For 900+ pages, though, two or three slip ups wasn't half bad.

There is a certain pleasure we take in thinking about how bad it gets, Sartaj thought, and then in imagining how it will inevitably get worse. And still we survive, the city stumbles on. Maybe one day it'll all just fall apart, and there was a certain gratification in that thought too. Let the maderchod blow.

I'm likely going to purchase any Chandra that I haven't read that comes across my path. The transition from short story to 900+ page multifaceted yet enjoyably readable epic is no small feat, and seeing how rarely my revisits of past successes follow through, I'm eager to amass works under a familiar name while my liking lasts. I admit to shamefacedly chortling along with one of the afterword's article's mention of the mainstream Anglo academic elite's valuing of India's international literary diaspora over the people who choose (or can afford) to stay, as I am much more familiar with the mentioned Lahiri and Desai than, say, Hyder, or even Tagore. Roy's an exception, but she also writes in English, so while I can claim a non Anglo (in the Anglo Saxon sense) viewpoint, the fact that the other three books on my docket are in translation shows it's not lack of opportunity limiting my experience with translations from Hindi or Punjabi or the multitude of other languages commonly referred to as Indian. I'm not knocking Chandra for writing this work the way he did, but now that I've had my fun, it's time to get back to work.

I have worked with politicians, and gangsters, and holy men, and let me tell you, none of these can compete with a writer for mountainous inflations of ego and mouse-like insecurities of soul.

P.S. All you Netflix subscribers over there, keep an eye out for this adaptation, pretty please. It needs all the love it can get.

I really enjoyed the Dickensian, multiple-character main storyline, even though the evil plot uncovered by the protagonist when he solved the mystery was a little preposterous. Unfortunately, there was a second story that Chandra wanted to write, that took up 40% of the book (I counted), and consisted of the increasingly rambling soliloquy of a deceased gangster. If only there had been a creative writing instructor to tell him in no uncertain terms that this part of the book added nothing and was entirely unoriginal. Or maybe the fact that I never got into the Sopranos means I am resistant to the literary potential of the gangster and his tragic journey. Either way, it was maddening to get drawn back into these annoying (and very long!) chapters when I just wanted to continue with the main storyline and characters.

Vikram Chandra livre dans ce livre un portrait incroyablement riche de la ville de Bombay, à travers les destins croisés d’un policier-enquêteur et d’un parrain local. À la fois roman policier, ode à Bombay, témoignage des blessures de l’histoire et de la société indienne, Le Seigneur de Bombay est un roman enrichissant par l'entrelacement des histoires, points de vus et destins des personnages. Vikram Chandra met en scène un Bombay authentique, loin d’être parfait, mais dont la beauté et le pouvoir enchanteur nous fait succomber au même titre que les protagonistes.
Pourtant, et peut-être à cause de ce portrait si complet, j’ai trouvé difficile de rester toujours entièrement impliquée dans l’histoire, à cause de la profusion de détails qui parfois entravent au déroulement de l’intrigue.
Un livre long (quand même 1200 pages!) qui pour moi est à lire pour découvrir les multiples facettes de la ville de Bombay, et quand on a beaucoup de temps devant soi!

I gave up on reading this book after about 120 pages. For me the dullest parts are the ones narrated by Ganesh - the prose is just not interesting enough for me to care about his story. I usually love sinking my teeth into huge, ambitious novels, but reading this one felt like a chore.

This book has no proper structure. It becomes very hard to keep track of time weather we are in present scenario or past store.

Entertaining !