Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

I read this book for Week 32: A Historical Fiction book. The book is set in drug underworld of 1970s Bombay.

Review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

At the heart of this novel lies the seedy, perverse world of drugs situated in the slums of Bombay. From its first word to its last (and it was the terrifically talented author-poet-librettist-musician's intention to make it that way), the book is all about Bombay -- the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. Words and stories about Bombay's underworld flow effortlessly; it's the kind of book I wish I could write. No matter. I'm just glad I was lucky enough to read it.

The novel, which was short-listed for the 2012 Man Booker Prize (a great year for it!), is actually a memoirish account of the author's drug addiction and experiences living in Bombay. Thayil uses a clever device to tell his series of interrelated stories of love, addiction and squalor that read like one unending hallucinatory dream sequence. Narcopolis unfolds over thirty years, from the late 1970s - early 2000's, when opium was the drug of choice until it was replaced later on by sinister, synthetically-manufactured heroin.

Characters, mainly criminals and junkies abound. Yet the most interesting character is Dimple, the sage, beautiful, tragically sensitive eunuch, a prostitute and opiate pipe doyenne in Rashid's drug den. Although the story is told by Dom, the third-person narrator who remains hidden until close to the end of the book, Dimple represents the heart and soul of this novel. Her existence touches everyone around her, especially Rashid and Mr. Lee, the Chinese exile who introduces her to opium.

I loved the mysticism and religious undertones that lend balance to everything in this book, despite the pervading squalor. There are also some great observances that pop up, including one on children, and, in a most specious account, the impending Corporate World Dominance awaiting India and the world in the form of planned obsolescence, as depicted by a spiritual advisor named Soporo.

And, of course, there's this one that's key: Dimple's tragic explanation of drug addiction brimming with truth:

Drugs are a bad habit, so why do it? Because, said Dimple, it isn't the heroin that we're addicted to, it's the drama of the life, the chaos of it, that's the real addiction and we never get over it; and because, when you come down to it, the high life, that is, the intoxicated life, is the best of the limited options we are offered -- why would we choose anything else?"

The ending is heartbreaking on all accounts; learning of Dimple's fate almost had me in tears. This novel is not for the fainthearted, but in all it's perversity, there is lightness and love. A surprise find, I read the ethereally poignant Narcopolis for Week 38: a book not written in a traditional novel format.

Oh, and...the next time I hear Men at Work's hit Down Under and Talking Heads' Once in a Lifetime, I'll think of this book.