Skip to main content

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid: book review





The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) is set in Lahore, Pakistan. The narrator, Changez, begins by approaching an American man in a café in the district of Old Anarkali.

The American is a stranger, but Changez offers to be of assistance to him. He begins a conversation, telling the stranger that he studied and worked in America.  Changez was recruited to a valuation firm in New York after completing his university course – beating over a hundred students of the Princeton Class of 2001 to the job. He topped the intake of five trainees and the end of the induction period. Readers come to know that Changez, the Pakistani, is an elite scholar, working in a prestigious company with an excellent salary for a 22 year old. In a competitive business, the quiet Changez does extremely well. He is good at his job.

He falls in love with an American girl, Erica, whom he met when he was on holiday in Greece. He even meets her family who live in “an impressive building with a blue canopy and an elderly doorman.” Erica’s boyfriend, Chris, had died of lung cancer, and she found it hard to get over the grief of the love of her life. Changez tells the stranger about her and her love for Chris: “theirs had been an usual love, with such a degree of commingling of identities that when Chris died, Erica felt she had lost herself; even now, she said, she did not know if she could be found.” She could not be found – because she could not get over her grief, and admits herself into a clinic for recovery.

And then – New York was attacked. It was September 11, 2001. As both Changez and Erica fall apart, emotions are laid bare. Three years have passed and Changez returns to his home city Lahore, and to the time when the story starts, in the café with the American stranger.

It is a simple story with simple language. Yet it is evocative one minute and aloof the next, understandable one minute, mysterious the next. Rich in psychological suspense, it is intense to the end. A short read, but a good read.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass

Sister cities discussed: Canberra and Islamabad

Two months ago, in March 2015, Australia and Pakistan agreed to explore ways to deepen ties. The relationship between Australia and Pakistan has been strong for decades, and the two countries continue to keep dialogues open. The annual bilateral discussions were held in Australia in March to continue engagements on a wide range of matters of mutual interest. The Pakistan delegation discussed points of interest will include sports, agriculture, economic growth, trade, border protection, business, and education. The possible twinning of the cities of Canberra, the capital of Australia, and Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, were also on the agenda (i.e. called twin towns or sister cities). Sister City relationships are twinning arrangements that build friendships as well as government, business, culture, and community linkages. Canberra currently has international Sister City relationships with Beijing in China and Nara in Japan. One example of existing