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Jeet Thayil
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Narcopolis Paperback – January 1, 2012

by Jeet Thayil (Author)
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 466 ratings
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Shuklaji Street, in Old Bombay. In Rashid's opium room the air is thick and potent. A beautiful young woman leans to hold a long-stemmed pipe over a flame, her hair falling across her dark eyes. Around her, men sprawl and mutter in the gloom, each one drifting with his own tide. Here, people say that you introduce only your worst enemy to opium.

Outside, stray dogs lope in packs. Street vendors hustle. Hookers call for custom through the bars of their cages as their pimps slouch in doorways in the half-light. There is an underworld whisper of a new terror: the Pathar Maar, the stone killer, whose victims are the nameless, invisible poor. There are too many of them to count in this broken city.

Narcopolis is a rich, chaotic, hallucinatory dream of a novel that captures the Bombay of the 1970s in all its compelling squalor. With a cast of pimps, pushers, poets, gangsters and eunuchs, it is a journey into a sprawling underworld written in electric and utterly original prose.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    292 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Faber & Faber
  4. Publication date
    January 1, 2012
  5. Dimensions
    6.02 x 0.87 x 9.21 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0571275761
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0571275762
  8. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Faber & Faber; Main edition (January 1, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 292 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0571275761
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0571275762
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.02 x 0.87 x 9.21 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 466 ratings

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Jeet Thayil

Jeet Thayil

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Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
3.9 out of 5
466 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Marcel L.
5.0 out of 5 stars A plunge into the Bombay's (Muumbai) underworld with a master wordcrafter
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2013
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Jeet Thayil brings us into the abyss of Mumbai's underworld in this beautifully written work as an old world crumble and a new Mumbai emerges from the chaos. Over a 30 years period, we follow the fortune (mostly misfortune)of eunnuch/transexual/prostitue/opium-pipe-manager Dimple, as well as the opium den owner, a Chinese refugee and his ghost, as they survive in the slums that are a fixture of this megalopole, Meanwhile the world is changing. Opium is replaced by heroin (garad), and later by an even deadlier and extremely addictive "chemical", a mixture of heroin and rat poison that has since spread all the way to Russia, Religious violence erupt throughout the city and the country. The Pakistani druglords/religious-fanatics are set on flooding their arch enemy India with their poison, as a not so secret weapon. The slums are replaced by luxury highrise that grow like mushroom among the decay and misery.
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Leela Devi Panikar
4.0 out of 5 stars Raw life unfurls in opium smoke
Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2012
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Narcopolis
by Jeet Thayil

Narcopolis joins the array of novels bold to real the life below the surface of the beautiful thriving old city, Bombay. It deals with drugs and addiction, sex and love, violence and perversion, god and death. Not the type of raw book I would chose to read ten years ago. I have grown up.

A varied cast populates the unfurling opium smoke - a murderer, businessmen, pimps, prostitutes, thugs, poets, painters, all drowning in degradation, lust and crime. We are drawn into a languorous world of shocking low life in and around Rashid's opium house on Shuklaji Street sometime in the 1970s, place of alleyways, and villages and decrepit buildings. We meet Dimple, the eunuch who prepares the pipes for the regular clients, the preparation an art like a sacred tea ceremony. The eunuch shows up as a beautiful lady who enjoys reading, goes to the cinema to watch lengthy Bollywood movies and listens to stories Mr Lee relates. Mr Lee, a Chinese refugee, a former soldier who fled communist China brings us a glimpse into the Mao era. Gritty Rashid, owner of the den, protects his family, especially his young son from exposure to low life of drugs and alcohol and prostitution.

The drifting characters give the novel a historical perspective as it moves in a haze with the arrival of hippies and an international groups seeking cheap solace. Indian politics and religious uprisings and violence are touched upon.
The tale moves to the present. After an absence the narrator returns to find a very different Bombay (Mumbai) in 2004. He comes seeking his friend Rashid and others he knew. The old place has disappeared giving way to proper roads and tall steel and glass buildings. He manages to contact his friend now old and sad and disillusioned and under the control of his educated son. His son a fervent Muslim with flexible morals, sells cocaine to the infidels, associates with women, and enjoys porn magazines. If necessary he might consider becoming a suicide bomber.

I found the novel stark, tragic and beautiful except when the focus shifted to China and Mao. I found this section trailing into distraction.

The author, Jeet Thayil, a poet, had at one time succumbed to addiction.

Man Booker prize short list

Jeet Thayil Narcoplis
Hilary Mantel Bringing Up the Bodies
Tan Twan Eng (one of my favourite writers) The Garden of Evening Mists
Deborah Levy Swimming Home
Will Self Umbrella
Alison Moore The Lighthouse
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Monica Brandi
3.0 out of 5 stars Great city to write about
Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2012
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Mumbai is a graet city to inspire a book. It is incredible, you feel like your are in another galaxy. The descriptions and the feeling of the city and of the characters are excellent, but the plot is inconclusive and it drifts to China, where it stays for the longest of times.
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Rajesh
5.0 out of 5 stars A Violent Symphony - Not for everyone
Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2013
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As many other reviewers have stated, this is about 70's / 80's opium dens in Mumbai, its violent, dark, gritty but at the same time beautiful. This is one of those novels that you either love or hate.

One thing that I noticed was that I kept comparing this to Shataram by Gregory David Roberts, not because this novel also deals with Mumbai, its underworld and drugs, but because like Gregory David Roberts, Jeet Thayil also throws in a good dose of `subtle philosophy'. I enjoyed it
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Difficult and Complicated, yet awesome
Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2013
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To be frank, Narcopolis is a complicated and difficult to read novel. The characters are complex, sentences go on for multiple pages, the narrative keeps shifting from one character to another and from one time period to another. Everyone may not like or enjoy it. There were portions of the novel where I lost track of what is happening and had to re-read some pages to understand it fully. However, once you get to know the characters well and get into the flow, the book is an absolute delight. It exposes the filthy and smelly underbelly of Bombay with a brutality that has never been attempted before.

Set in the infamous opium dens of Shuklaji Street in Bombay, it is a story of addiction with the city of Bombay as the protagonist Supporting characters include Dom - the foreign returned junkie, Rashid - addict and owner of an opium den, Dimple/Zeenat - addict, eunuch prostitute who works at Rashid's, Bengali - addict and employee at Rashid's who has an opinion on everything from religion to politics to science, Mr. Lee - the Chinese addict and owner of another opium den, and Rumi - another addict (you get it - everyone is an addict). Through these characters Jeet has drawn a naked portrait of Bombay - ugly and nasty, yet so true. There isn't any well-defined plot - just an amalgamation of various stories of related characters connected by the drug, the den and the city. Jeet is also a poet and the influence is clearly visible here. This influence has made his writing unique, one of the strongest points of this novel.

Narcopolis is the debut novel by Jeet Thayil. It was nominated by the 2012 Man Booker Prize. In his own words, Narcopolis is about Bombay of the 70′s and 80′s - the city of intoxication, where the substances on offer were drugs and alcohol, of course, but also god, glamour, power, money and sex. The book draws from his own experience as an addict.

PS: The novel is laden with foul language, violence and sexual content. Not suitable for underage readers, or for readers who are easily offended.

Thanks,
Ashutosh
[...]
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Richa S Mukherjee
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!
Reviewed in India on September 12, 2021
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This book grew on me. It took its time, meandering through the lives of various characters and the haze of their addictions and motivations, but eventually it reeled me in. The writing is savage, sensitive and powerful all at once and it effortlessly sucks you into this trippy universe.
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book crazy
4.0 out of 5 stars arrived looks new
Reviewed in Japan on March 27, 2020
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perfect delivery
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Oparazzo
4.0 out of 5 stars The City That Opium Built
Reviewed in Germany on August 27, 2013
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Bombay: Mit diesem Wort beginnt und endet Jeet Thayils Roman "Narcopolis".

Bombay, das erste Stück Land in Indien, das die Engländer in ihren Besitz brachten und von dem aus die East India Company China mit Unmengen Opium zuschüttete, bei dieser Gelegenheit den weltweiten Drogenhandel aus der Taufe hob und damit unfassbar reich wurde: Bombay spielt die heimliche, unheimliche Hauptrolle in diesem Buch.

Die Handlung - sofern man diese so bezeichnen möchte - spielt in den letzten drei Jahrzehnten des vergangenen Jahrhunderts. Mittelpunkt des Geschehens ist die Shuklaji Street, die das Rotlichtviertel Kamathipura in ganzer Länge durchquert. Altes und neues Bombay prallen aufeinander: Dem gelassenen, langsamen Bombay der Opiumhöhlen, in denen man entspannt daliegend seine Pfeife rauchte, wird vom schnellen, gefährlichen, schmutzigen Heroin aus Pakistan der Garaus gemacht, und den Bewohnern dieser halluzinierenden Traumwelt gleich mit.

Das ist allen voran Dimple, eine Hijra, die als Junge von acht oder neun Jahren von ihrer Mutter an eine Bordellbesitzerin verkauft und anschließend kastriert wurde. (Kaum ein Roman, der in Bombay spielt, kommt ohne Hijras aus, aber ein so einfühlsames Portrait dieser zwischen den Stühlen der Geschlechter sitzenden Menschen habe ich noch nirgends gelesen.) Ihr Mentor Lee, der sie mit der Wirkung des Opiums vertraut macht, ist mit Glück den Wirren des kulturrevolutionären Chinas entronnen und in Bombay hängengeblieben. Seine Geschichte, die einen relativ großen Teil des Romans einnimmt, wirkt auf den ersten Blick als Fremdkörper, verdient aber durch die eingangs erwähnte "Handelsbeziehung" zu China durchaus ihren Platz. Rashid, Besitzer der Opiumhöhle, in der Dimple die Pfeifen stopft und am Brennen hält, ist selbst sein bester Kunde, braucht aber, um den Anforderungen seines Geschäfts zu genügen, noch einige andere Upper und Downer. Und schließlich Rumi, der trostlos verheiratete kleine Angestellte, der nachts im Heroinrausch mit dem Hammer durch die dunklen Gassen zieht und seiner eigentlichen Sucht frönt.

Der Roman lebt weniger von seiner Handlung als von seinen Bildern. Nicht allein davon, dass Jeet Tayil uns tief in die Traumwelt seiner Protagonisten eintauchen lässt, sondern auch von den Farben, Geräuschen und Gerüchen, die der Leser mit Orten wie Grant Road, Bombay Central, Malabar Hill, Chowpatty Beach und natürlich Kamathipura assoziiert. Das kann er aber nur, wenn er Bombay kennt, und man kommt nicht daran vorbei, dass hier ein indischer Autor ein Buch für indische Leser geschrieben hat, allenfalls noch für die, die Bombay gut kennen oder gar, wie ich, das Glück hatten, einige Jahre ihres Lebens in dieser unglaublichen Stadt zu verbringen. Sonst bleibt einem leider vieles verborgen.
4 people found this helpful
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Yogini Star
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 19, 2013
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I was recommended this book, and have to say I found it fascinating. The author introduces one character after another, and tells each one's story - but comes back full circle. Not always pleasent - but an open and honest account of the Opium dens in Mumbai.
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Consolata
5.0 out of 5 stars Oppio e nostalgia
Reviewed in Italy on November 17, 2012
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Non mi capita sovente, ma finendo questo romanzo mi è venuta voglia di rileggerlo subito. Non solo perché è bello (molto) ma per ricostruire i nessi sotterranei che collegano i personaggi, le corrispondenze e i rimandi che lo percorrono tutto. Non a caso uno dei temi è lo scambio dei sogni, che passano dall'uno all'altro personaggio; e un altro, la dipendenza dalle droghe, passa attraverso l'amore, l'affetto e l'amicizia. La storia inizia alla fine degli anni Settanta a Bombay, in una fumeria d'oppio frequentata dall'io narrante, rispedito in India dagli Stati Uniti dove l'hanno sorpreso a comprare droga. Rashid, musulmano osservante con due mogli e un certo numero di figli che vivono al piano di sopra della fumeria, anche lui oppiomane, ne è il padrone e nume tutelare; Dimple, bella e femminilissima, è la principale sacerdotessa del rito della pipa. La sua storia costituisce il nucleo della narrazione; ceduta dalla madre perché diventasse hijra (eunuco) quando era bambina, è stata castrata a otto o nove anni, ha vissuto per una quindicina d'anni in un bordello di hijra, è stata iniziata all'oppio da mr Lee, ex ufficiale cinese. Poi ci sono i fantasmi, i morti che vivono solo nel ricordo di chi hanno amato, e la nostalgia, il passato, la droga che accoglie e dà pace come l'amore di una madre, fa dimenticare la solitudine e il dolore. Ognuno dei personaggi ha qualche ferita profonda che può essere risanata solo con la droga, sempre di più. C'è il tradimento, quello che fa male solo a chi lo commette, e il rimorso, l'amicizia che si rinnega davanti alle difficoltà e la capacità di trasformarsi facendo propri i sogni altrui. Soprattutto c'è Bombay, la città che ha cancellato il proprio passato cambiandosi il nome e alterando chirurgicamente la propria faccia, la stessa città in cui hindu e musulmani vivono fianco a fianco condividendo miseria e crimini, ma nei giorni del furore si uccidono senza motivo e senza pietà. C'è la religione, anzi le tante religioni e i tanti dei che brulicano nelle teste e nei templi degli abitanti della città. E poi arriva l'eroina dal Pakistan e spazza via i rituali, la pipa, la lentezza, i sogni. Il mondo delle fumerie d'oppio sparisce, prima distrutto dall'eroina poi sostituito dalla cocaina, droga della modernità.
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