Shortlisted for a Booker Prize (with five other books) in September 2012, the poet Jeet Thayil's debut novel "Narcopolis" is set in Bombay among addicts and gained praise from some critics while others thought it gimmicky, especially because of what he does in the opening line of the book, which reads as:
"Bombay, which obliterated its own history by changing its name and surgically altering its face, is the hero or heroin of this story, and since I'm the one who's telling it and you don't know who I am, let me say that we'll get to the who of it..."
which is just the beginning of something very unusual - so my question is, what's so different about the opening of the book?
(I should have been playing Shankar Mahadevan's "Breathless" while writing this)
[+ Show Answer]
The opening sentence continues unbroken for about seven pages. For a sample (and an exhausting one at that), read
this blog post.
Now, I will now go recover from what I tried to do in the question - safe in the knowledge that the Booker jury will not be giving it any prize. You go rest too.
Do you know the 2012 IZ survey is in progress? Do give us your feedback about this blog - the survey is here.