![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I received a copy of Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts for my birthday. I put off starting it because, frankly, it's a long book- 933 large pages. And I wasn't sure if I was ready to commit to serious reading.
But tonight I promised myself that I would read the first chapter. And my how I got sucked in. I read three chapters instead and am still craving for more.
How do you resist a book that begins this way?
"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realised, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in the shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn't sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it's all you've got, that freedom is a universe of possibility. And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life."
Amazing...
But tonight I promised myself that I would read the first chapter. And my how I got sucked in. I read three chapters instead and am still craving for more.
How do you resist a book that begins this way?
"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realised, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in the shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn't sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it's all you've got, that freedom is a universe of possibility. And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life."
Amazing...
