Mohsin Hamid

The reluctant fundamentalist

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

It is not a secret the author’s work is influenced by post 9/11 events and America’s ‘war against terrorism’. The book shows the POV of an aspiring Pakistani muslim young professional who lives in New York and how the 9/11 attacks profoundly changed his life (in a way that is not typically portrayed by similar work on that era. Spoiler alert: he was not radicalized)

Rahma Ali

Brishti Basu

A story told in an interesting and altogether unique fashion, The Reluctant Fundamentalist is primarily an engrossing tale of a man torn between two worlds...gripping, right until the last page where one encounters a maddeningly unsatisfactory cliff-hanger. A must read for all realists in the 21st century.

Kritika Narula

Here is why I would recommend this book to everyone. Everyone, at least once, irrespective of their nationality, religion, color et cetera et cetera. 

1. The conversational style:
The book has been written as a conversation between a Pakistani who used to work with a valuation firm in America and an American tourist, one might surmise. It is actually a proof of how there can in fact exist a conversation without one of the persons having any word to say. Yes, this conversation between two people is a monologue. This is one of those unique characteristics of the book that you arr able to retain for long after you have read it. If for nothing else, read the book for this uncanny, pleasant presentation, formally known as the Dramatic Monologue.

2. Exploration of themes like Human fallibility, Identity crisis 
No book has ever depicted human fallibility, a screwed sense of judgement and the inevitable return to the motherland, so accurately and so curtly as this. It manages to capture the agonies and apprehensions of a Pakistani in the post 9/11 era. His lost sense of dignity. That feeling of being torn between an impossible love affair and a loyalty towards the motherland

3. The big things in life.
As the narrator confides the story of his life to an American Stranger at a cafe in Lahore, it is like a memoir. We fell a sharp tinge of pain, a surge of emotions in the honest way that the narrator, Changez reveals all little secrets of his life, facts privy to him in a brutally honest admission.And then it strikes you somewhere in the middle of the plot. You may whine about petty stuff, ...over trivial material things. Eventually you are doomed to understand that none of this matters. None of this suffices to give you solace in times of need. You cannot warm up to a job that no longer excites you. You cannot gulp down a glass of beer when your brotherhood is in a turmoil of sorts. You cannot find peace with money.

4. A recurring theme: Your past
The fact that the narrator is so nostalgic about the life he had, about how he fantasized it could have turned out differently had some things not been the way they were, And man's tendency or rather reluctance to let go of this past, to come out of all that has happened that changed everything is a theme around which the plot hovers.

5. The plot
The plot is, as such, very light on the reader. maybe it is because of the conversational style.
The Guardian sums up the plot, 'We learn that Changez is a highly educated Pakistani who worked as a financial analyst for a prestigious firm in New York. But after a disastrous love affair and the September 11 attacks, his western life collapses and he returns disillusioned and alienated to Pakistan.'

6. Changez, the protagonist
Now, this is not a perfect, infallible (and hence, non-existent ad unreal) protagonist, he has flaws in his character. Human flaws. And he admits them. Like, for instance his pleasure in the aftermath of 9/11.
His relationship with Erica is another equation that demands calculations from the readers, and makes up a large part of the second half of the novel. His intellect drew him to the mine of opportunities that is America. And it is ironic, how pleasant his life was until, you know, 9/11 happened, and he became disillusioned.

And last but not the least, a character to look out for and try to decipher is Jim.


why I recommend

Ivy Vatsala

A good book, the author uses his protagonist brilliantly to present an outsider's perspective on post-9/11 USA. You could call it a classic example of how 'familiarity breeds contempt'. The love story, rather the love interest of the protagonist leaves a lot to be desired, but brings out the haunted aspect of human loss.

The Reluctant Fundamentalistis Mohsin Hamid's thrillingly provocative international bestseller Shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2007 Now a major film directed by Mira Nair and starring Kate Hudson and Kiefer Sutherland 'Excuse me, sir, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard. I am a lover of America . . . ' So speaks the mysterious stranger at a Lahore cafe as dusk settles. Invited to join him for tea, you learn his name and what led this speaker of immaculate English to seek you out. For he is more worldy than you might expect; better travelled and better educated. He knows the West better than you do. And as he tells you his story, of how he embraced the Western dream -- and a Western woman -- and how both betrayed him, so the night darkens. Then the true reason for your meeting becomes abundantly clear . . . Challenging, mysterious and thrillingly tense, Mohsin Hamid's masterly The Reluctant Fundamentalistis a vital read teeming with questions and ideas about some of the most pressing issues of today's globalised, fractured world. 'Masterful . . . A multi-layered and thoroughly gripping book, which works as a poignant love story, a powerful dissection of how US imperialist machinations have turned so many people against the world's superpower - and as a thriller that subtly ratchets up the nerve-jangling tension towards an explosive ending' Metro 'Beautifully written . . . more exciting than any thriller I've read for a long time' Philip Pullman 'A brilliant book' Kiran Desai 'Admirably spare and amazingly exciting' Rachel Cooke, New Statesman Mohsin Hamid is the author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist,Moth Smoke and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia.His fiction has been translated into over 30 languages, received numerous awards, and been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He has contributed essays and short stories to publications such as the Guardian, The New York Times, Financial Times, Granta, and Paris Review. Born and mostly raised in Lahore, he spent part of his childhood in California, studied at Princeton University and Harvard Law School, and has since lived between Lahore, London, and New York.

Vanya de Lang 

A slow going, easy to read story with a brilliant twist. I was shocked and delighted by it. I would definitely recommend it. An overflow of ideas with a single person dialogue. Something amazing I have never had the pleasure to read before and I am certain I will never have the luck to read again. Definitely a new favourite.

Carroll Lachnit

Really liked it! A brilliant, sustained monologue by a narrator with whom you could really identify (except for just one thing, which I can't get into w/o a spoiler). 

The book really lit a fuse in our reading group's discussion. Plus, it's a fast read!

Athena Eloy

Unique style of narration, as this novel unfolds over the course of a day-long conversation between the protagonist, and you, an American in Lahore. The tension created in this storytelling becomes most apparent in the pages concluding the novel. A short and brilliant examination of love and loss, how identity is shaped by global forces, and the fallout of a media and state-backed effort to vilify Muslims in post-9/11 USA.

Ambreen Hasan

I was feeling nostalgic about the motherland and decided to pick up a book by Mohsin Hamid. 

This book did not disappoint. We begin the story with two men seated at a street restaurant in Anarkali Bazaar, a famous marketplace in Lahore, Pakistan. The main narrator, Changez, flips between past and present detailing his life to this nervous looking white dude who needs to chill out. It is a story of the rise of racism towards "Muslim-looking" people after 9/11 and how it deeply affected not just America and Americans, but the entire world.

The ending is open to interpretation. Some may hate it, but I appreciated it because it challenges biases that white Americans had/have against any brown-looking person. Are Changez and others who look like him suspicious just because of his Anti-American rhetoric? I think not.

Alan Schussman

Hamid's narrator is carefully assembled to be ambiguous, both in his internal life and his visible actions. He's alienated from virtually everything in his life and portrayed as emotionally stunted, so on one hand this makes his few obsessions easy to understand; on the other hand, it sometimes makes them less convincing. All this ambiguity mirrors the scene where he's telling his story -- the outdoor cafe in Lahore -- suggests that there are many ways to interpret what has happened and what may be about to happen.

At a cafe table in Lahore, a Pakistani man begins the tale that has led to his fateful meeting with an uneasy American stranger... Changez is living an immigrant's dream of America. He thrives on the energy of New York, his work at an elite firm, and his budding relationship. For a time, it seems that nothing will stand in the way of his meteoric rise to success. But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his relationship crumbling and his exalted status overturned. Allegiances are subsequently unearthed, proving themselves more fundamental than money, power and maybe even love.

Fiona

That ending!

I read both this and Exit West in one sitting - they were both so good! This was mostly set in America but the behaviours shown are quite often replicated here so it wasn't entirely a foreign concept. The love story element of this did get a bit frustrating and towards the end, boring, but it was still a small enough part to not sully the whole experience.

I adore the way Hamid writes - the way the story flows so seamlessly that putting the book down is near impossible! It's almost as if his novels are his own life stories, there's no break in the story where a fictional tale would have one and there's so many minute details that make it seem like the character (and the person writing that character) actually lived this life.

The Man Booker-shortlisted, thrillingly provocative international bestseller - adapted to a major motion picture starring Kiefer Sutherland - from the author of Exit West 'Excuse me, sir, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard. I am a lover of America . . . ' So speaks the mysterious stranger at a Lahore cafe as dusk settles. Invited to join him for tea, you learn his name and what led this speaker of immaculate English to seek you out. For he is more worldy than you might expect; better travelled and better educated. He knows the West better than you do. And as he tells you his story, of how he embraced the Western dream -- and a Western woman -- and how both betrayed him, so the night darkens. Then the true reason for your meeting becomes abundantly clear . . . Challenging, mysterious and thrillingly tense, Mohsin Hamid's masterly The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a vital read teeming with questions and ideas about some of the most pressing issues of today's globalised, fractured world.

Elena Garcia Navarro

This book was just okay, I couldn't relate to the main character, and since we just get his narrative voice throughout the whole novel, that was the main problem for me. I didn't much care about his experiences and found the "romance" a bit obsessive and toxic. I think the ending didn't have the desired shocking effect on me that it was trying to achieve either.

Just kept reading 'cause it was extremely easy to keep turning pages and it was a fast and short read.

Trevor Berrett

Since this is the only short-listed Booker I have, I had to pick it up and read it before the prize is announced. It's a quick, compelling read--I read half of it on the train today. So far, it's pretty good, though sometimes I get annoyed at the narrative device. Many dramatic monologues when including responses to the immediate audience flow more smoothly than this. However, the story itself is well written and very interesting.
Update: I just finished. While the dramatic monologue still bothered me a bit, it comes off more natural, and in the end it is powerful. This is a fascinating book. Even though on its surface it is about a Pakistani's disillusionment with America after September 11, there is much in here about identity and about relationships, both personal and national. And as I said, the dramatic monologue works perfectly at the end, as the tension builds, and the reader is also faced with the perplexities of these complicated relationships.
Highly recommended.

Anina

I hated the narration style. I hated how Changez behaved towards Erica. The only thing I didn‘t hate was the plot. Because there was none. This feels like wanna-be sophisticated work of literature, but for me, it fell flat.

Nikki Fowler 

This book provokes a lot of thinking, it also highlights some points about America which are still very evident 10 years on.

The reluctant fundamentalist

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