The story of Lin, Australian escaped convict who flees his country to India. All the components of life are unraveled through Lin's experiences of love, hate, money, greed, friendship, trust, drugs, war, family and the value of living. Through Greg's exceptional ability to capture and create emotion while toying with ideas of creation and worth the crazy and exotic slums and palace of India and the people who call it home are created with depth and intensity. The characters are all extremely complex, with a multitude of sides, yet Lin manages to extract love and devotion from almost all of them, inspiring the best parts of even the worst people to emerge.
"It's forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would've annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive"
This book made me cry, laugh and mourn. I felt like a different person after reading it, ready to make changes that reflected the loving and selfless attitudes expressed in the book, as well as planting the travel bug stubbornly within my goal driven mind.
Read it, read it, read it!
