The Reluctant Fundamentalist

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It's a hit!

A witty pinch to US arrogance, the arrogance that we have seen and are facing the consequences off in our everyday lives. Love and passion of a Pa... (show more)

A witty pinch to US arrogance, the arrogance that we have seen and are facing the consequences off in our everyday lives. Love and passion of a Pakistani man for glorious USA and the story of its betrayal. The death of USA's innocence following 9/11 and the emergence of a very ugly face of USA was being cleverly charactered as Erica (the beautiful America girl he falls in love with - depicts USA before collapse of twin towers)

A must read book, one of the very best ever. Difficult for a person not familiar with the transition from love to hate for USA admin. in Pakistan but not difficult for me to understand since I am living this phase myself.

A true representation of the feelings of a common Pakistani man/woman about US government. And yes sir we are not as illiterate and backwards as you may like to think we are. (show less)

 

 

by Facebook-användare

No, it's a flop!

The majority of the novel is enjoyable, albeit not particularly intellectual or literary. It's a fairly simple narrative, and that's fine.

What is... (show more)

The majority of the novel is enjoyable, albeit not particularly intellectual or literary. It's a fairly simple narrative, and that's fine.

What is frustrating about Hamid's work is its lack of any strong thesis--in a book that aims to be persuasive--and its complete hypocrisy. Hamid claims in interviews about "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" that he wanted to craft a nuanced argument speaking to cultural barriers created and strengthened in the heightened tensions of the post-September 11th world; yet, the protagonist of the book explicitly comes to be repulsed by American values and the plot ends with a seemingly docile American perhaps pulling a weapon from his coat to do who-knows-what with. Hamid has not written a novel that will promote cultural negotiation, but rather will appeal to growing anti-American sentiments both internationally and within the United States.

This book would have succeeded much more as a psychological study of the narrator's divided cultural and nationalistic loyalties: as he describes it on the final page, he is Kurtz waiting for his Marlowe. While Hamid attempts to pen such a study, he fails. "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is a short-sighted and trite rant against American foreign policy. (show less)

 

 

by Facebook-användare

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  This is a dramatic monologue of a young Pakistani scholar and anti-American activist recounting to a rather paranoid American in Lahore, Pakistan about his life in America prior to 9/11 and after wards. His studies at Princeton and job with a top business firm created conflict within him between his love for his country, need for status affirmation and his despise of American arrogance, wealth flamboyancy and yet love for an American woman. I am rather conflicted myself about how I feel about... (show more)

  This is a dramatic monologue of a young Pakistani scholar and anti-American activist recounting to a rather paranoid American in Lahore, Pakistan about his life in America prior to 9/11 and after wards. His studies at Princeton and job with a top business firm created conflict within him between his love for his country, need for status affirmation and his despise of American arrogance, wealth flamboyancy and yet love for an American woman. I am rather conflicted myself about how I feel about this book, on the one hand I hate its simplistic prose, unrealistic dialogue and its repetitive chapter structure but its also has got great analogies, allusions and a few beautiful and subtle metaphors. My favorite allusions are to the names he gives his characters: The protagonist Changez means change in French and is the old Urdu name for Ghengis Khan, Erica for America, and Underwood Samson the firm he works for an allusion to the biblical Samson. Ironic that Samson's strength lay in his hair and those that work at Underwood Samson are clean shaven with short hair. The best analogy was between Erica's mental breakdown, PTSD triggered by 9/11, nostalgia to a time with an old world charm where her mortality was not a concern, suicidal tendencies and America after 9/11. I find Hamid in creating this book a bit too angry however. His reversal of American stereotyping I find degrades his charachter to the level of partisan Americans. Great that he puts a reflective mirror for Americans to see their arrogance and those in the business world their own fundamentalism. The Neruda referral a nice touch in this endeavor as Neruda had a skewed mirror at the entrance to his house meant for his drunk friends to agonize over.
  I don't agree with this book being short-listed for the Man Booker Prize (which is rare as I tend to agree with the Man Booker Prize); It is not the greatest of books but neither a book that I wouldn't recommend. The book starts of slow but it really does build up. The ending was beautiful, nice way of leaving the story open-ended and dramatic. Is the American a fundamentalist unable to be moved by an intimate human contact with a foreigner or not? (show less)

   

   

  by Facebook-användare on Mar 06, 2009 at 06:04PM

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  On my first reading of this novel, I thought there was something offbalance (as with Salman Rushdie’s Fury), that this novel suffered from a shaky narrative structure, with regards to point of view. Since the story is so one-sided, I felt it could have been condensed into a short story; at times it just seemed drawn out for too long. After all, can all of this be recited within the duration of a meal at a restaurant and the ensuing walk back to the mysterious American’s hotel?
  I too was a yo... (show more)

  On my first reading of this novel, I thought there was something offbalance (as with Salman Rushdie’s Fury), that this novel suffered from a shaky narrative structure, with regards to point of view. Since the story is so one-sided, I felt it could have been condensed into a short story; at times it just seemed drawn out for too long. After all, can all of this be recited within the duration of a meal at a restaurant and the ensuing walk back to the mysterious American’s hotel?
  I too was a young non-American brought to serve the great educational system of that nation, under the guise of a ‘generous’ scholarship package. I’m very grateful for the opportunity, but like the fictional Changez, I could not avoid feeling that "they" were getting a lot more out of me than they were willing to receive/learn from my own cultural wealth. Not only was I excelling at the academic field I was studying, I was simultaneously attuned to the minutiae of contemporary American popular culture. Meanwhile, though, my colleagues could barely pinpoint my country on the map; they also did not care to learn this information, even if for appearance’s sake. One couldn’t help feeling the exchange as being indeed one-sided. So it was easy for me to get into Changez’ skin.
  However, I still feel that the mysterious American should have been given an opportunity to speak up more than he does; "that" side of the ideological argument isn't that deeply portrayed.
  Anyway, on a second reading I was able to catch some of the subtleties in Mohsin Hamid’s novel. Besides the play on the character names, there are also numerous direct and indirect metaphorical references to Star Wars as well as the crusades, adding layers of meaning to the novel’s theme. And of course the choice of Flight 417 out of all Tintin titles is no random coincidence either.
  Another thing I was able to appreciate better on the second reading is the variation in tone between the old and the reformed Changez. When he recounts the past he speaks with the easygoing diction characteristic of American prose. When he is in the Lahori present, his speech bears the idiosyncrasies of post-colonial English. (show less)

   

   

  by Facebook User on Aug 13, 2009 at 10:42AM

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