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Loading... The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007)by Mohsin Hamid
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Compelling reading, topical and wry. ( ) Hard to review this book because it was a first-person narrative told to a relative stranger over a meal in Lahore, Pakistan. The protagonist is a Pakistani native, who attended Princeton University on a scholarship and then stayed in New York City, working for a large corporation. Much of his story takes place there. After 9/11, though, everything changed, particularly the way in which Asians were treated here and he eventually returned to Pakistan, but it also explores the notion of cultural pride when it is in conflict with one's sense of morality. Must wonder how much was partly autobiographical, and there were many keen observations throughout. The narrator of this book is a Pakistani man who goes to Princeton and then gets a job at a prestigious financial firm in New York City. He has a strange unrequited relationship with a young woman who can't let go of her love for her tragically deceased boyfriend. He thrives in the US, works very hard at his job, and loves his decadent Western life. Then the 9/11 attacks happen, and he sees the backlash against Muslims, and he becomes disillusioned about the US. I think this book might have lost some of its impact in the 20+ years since 9/11. I didn't find anything particularly shocking or revelatory. To me it is not surprising that a Muslim immigrant would have anti-American feelings, especially after how viciously the US reacted to 9/11. "Reluctant Fundamentalist" seems like a very strange title. The narrator does not become a religious fundamentalist. He might be labeled a terrorist sympathizer, but actual religious doctrine is not mentioned at all in this book. The pacing of the story is strange. The book has a very long build-up to 9/11, and then seems to end pretty quickly. The whole storyline with the girlfriend doesn't seem to add anything to the story.
It seems that Hamid would have us understand the novel's title ironically. We are prodded to question whether every critic of America in a Muslim country should be labeled a fundamentalist, or whether the term more accurately describes the capitalists of the American upper class. Yet these queries seem blunter and less interesting than the novel itself, in which the fundamentalist, and potential assassin, may be sitting on either side of the table. There's undoubtedly a great novel waiting to be written out of the anguished material of these kinds of east/west encounters. This book may not be it, but its author (who won a Betty Trask award for his first novel, Moth Smoke) certainly has the potential to write it. Has as a student's study guideAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
"Changez is living an immigrant's dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by the elite valuation firm of Underwood Samson. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his budding romance with elegant, beautiful Erica promises entry into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back in Lahore. But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned and his relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past. And Changez's own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and maybe even love"--Book jacket. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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