Word Attack!!

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

April 1, 2008 on 5:30 pm | In Book Reviews |

May 28, 2007

This book has been getting a lot of attention in the media, with most authors, critics going ga-ga over it. I picked up the book recently, and found it riveting enough ( and easy to read also) which made me finish it within 2 days.

Firstly, Mohsin Hamid is a Pakistani writer whose earlier novel Moth Smoke also got a lot of recognition. I had borrowed it from a library about 4 years back and read it then, when I was going through a phase of reading a lot of Indian, Pakistani, Muslim, ethnic fiction. The novel was intriguing, but I didnt like it very much. I cant pinpoint the reason now.

Anyway, coming to this book, it is the story of Changez, a young Pakistani man who is a Princeton graduate, and is working in an upmarket evaluation firm in New York. This is just before 9/11 and post 9/11, how Changez changes and why he changes forms the crux of the story.

The narrative is in first person, with Changez striking a conversation with an American outside a busy Lahore restaurant. However, conversation is not what it is like. Its more of a monologue, with Changez repeating the American’s questions to us. ( We dont hear the American speaking at all). While decidedly an innovative technique, I personally felt that it was too strained. And to make an entire novel hold on to that conversation, where events wove in and out of Lahore and New York, …I’m sorry to say, it smacked of artifice. Also, Changez’s tone is mismatched with Changez’s character as is revealed in the novel in the latter half. His belligerence towards America is in direct opposition to his attitude towards the American. And this is where I feel the story has failed. The entire premise of the story built around that seemingly one-sided conversation feels out of place.

Anyway, the good parts…I have to admit that the book paints an elaborate picture of the post 9/11 world, particularly towards Pakistani muslims. Changez’s self discovery, and his increasing feeling of betrayal towards his own country, his realization that making money in America forces one to live in a microcosm, where one has to wear blinders to avoid looking at what the world is doing…all strike a feeling where one knows what he is talking about.

His love story with Erica the young American girl is complex and interesting. Where she is caught up in the past with her own demons, and unwilling to live in the present, these feelings are transferred to Changez when he moves back to Lahore.

The novel has a languorous pace, but it picks up speed especially towards the end, which makes one feel that we have rammed into a hurtling train. I still wish the author had not focused so much on technique(the conversation), because his content is worthy of better.