Narcopolis
In the third of my reviews of the Man Booker Prize long listed novels in 2012, I turn now to: Jeet Thayil’s debut novel, Narcopolis, tells the story of an opium den in Bombay in the 1970s. Shuklaji Street is where the no-hopers, the prostitutes and eunuchs, the dealers and the users hang out, and Rashid’s opium den is the most famous. Later in its life, film stars will come there, directors will look to it for inspiration, and the dispossessed will find solace in its walls. Thayil’s prose is liquid gold. He has perfect control, and his novel drifts between scenes as if riding the opium high. That he has received critical acclaim as a poet comes as no surprise – there is poetry in these words. His central characters – Rashid, Dimple, the eunuch, and Mr Lee, the Chinese worker who has fled his homeland (narrated through an exciting aside that takes us into Mao’s China) – are all equally well drawn. There is a sub...