Book Club Discussion Questions
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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, A Short History of Mumbai (Bombay) and our BookBrowse Review of Sacred Games.
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
- Manu Tewari, the screenwriter, tells Gaitonde that "a thriller has to
start with the danger, tell the audience what they’re supposed to be scared
of, what is at stake, and then it should race to the finish." Does Sacred
Games obey these essential rules of the thriller? If it’s not a
thriller, what is it?
- The French translator for Sacred Games, Johan-Frédérik Hel Geudj,
noted that doublings and mirroring proliferate in the book – there is the
pairing of the Sartag and Gaitonde (connected, of course, through the
sisters Mary and Jojo), but then they each have two father-figures, and they
each betray one of these father figures. What other doubles can you find in
the book?
- Based upon the above question, symmetry seems to be a theme in the book.
Why are these symmetries in the book? Is there a pattern? Does the pattern
mean anything? Is the book finally symmetrical?
- What effect do the "Insets" have on the reader?
- The traditional form of the griller or the detective story sets up a
closed narrative world in which there is a comprehensible solution to every
mystery. By the end of this kind of story, the detective knows everything
that can be known, and the chain of causality which leads to the crime (or
the bomb) has been completely determined and fixed. What are the chains of
causality in Sacred Games? Do the characters know and understand
anything, even at the end?
- "Bollywood" is a term informally applied to a genre of film that are
colorful, melodramatic, and contain elements including star-crossed lovers,
family ties, sacrifice, corrupt politicians, and conniving villains. Though
Sacred Games is not a novelistic approach to Bollywood – it
incorporates many of those elements. Which "Bollywood" elements does
Sacred Games incorporate? To what effect?
- Sacred Games is daunting in size and scope. Do you feel that the
novel is too large for all of the characters, story-lines, and themes?
Perhaps it is not large enough? How did the size of the novel and large cast
of characters affect your reading experience?
Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Harper Perennial.
Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.
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