THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST. A paperback book written by Mohsin Hamid, published by Penguin

Essential Stats

Pages: 224
Published: Thursday 24th April 2008
Dimensions: 20cm tall, 13cm wide, 3cm thick
Weight: 223 grams
ISBN: 0141029544
RRP: ~~£7.99~~
Availability at Amazon UK:
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The Reluctant Fundamentalist Cover

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Reviews

Mohsin has written a clever book, which in my humble opinion should never have been published. It adds to the myth that there is something fundamentally wrong with western culture, in particular with that of the USA. While that of his country of birth Pakistan is painted as idlyllicaly humane and caring. This type of distortion is dangerous and feeds the bigots who want to undermine the self confidence of the West while being totally uncritical of the failings of the East. Would such a critical book written by a western have been published in Pakistan? Certainly not, I would suggest. I would discourage potential readers from buying this book.

I've given this 4 stars, even though I'm not entirely sure what I made of it. The entirety of this short book (220 pages but they are pretty spaced out) is related by the narrator to someone he's met in a Lahori cafe. He recounts the tale of his life, how he went to America, studied at Princeton, got a very highly paid job and became American. Or, as he says, a New Yorker, at least. And then 9/11 happened and everything changed.

I did enjoy the book, which is, I suppose, a study of how young men get sucked into fundamentalism. Throughout I was drawing the parallels with John Updike's Terrorist - another short book looking at the same thing, albeit from a totally different perspective. I didn't find this entirely convincing - there seems to be a sudden lurch from one thing to another which isn't entirely plausible. But at the same time, and maybe this is the point, the whole book is narrated by the lead character, so maybe he is being ambiguous or incomplete deliberately. So throughout the story you're never entirely sure of where you stand. Which might be the point. Oh, I don't know!

Read it yourself and see what you think.

Yes,great title though not strictly accurate. It is well written but I really wish it was as a proper dialogue as opposed to a narrator who explains all the time what his companion did or said. As to the substance of the book, it is difficult not to feel it represents the author's views. If it has a slant to being slightly anti-US and pro-Pakistan, I found it had a tendency to engender the opposite feelings in me. The ending just fizzles out which is a disappointment. Nevertheless, it's different, definitely worth a read, and being only 200 odd pages long, can be whizzed through fairly quickly.

This book is beautifully written. The words are chosen with care and this is consistent with the fact that the narrator - although had a privileged anglophile upbringing - is not English mother-tongue. However there are some annoying - if not disturbing - profiles. The narrator (or the author?) although proclaims his annoyance by American people's superiority complex, seems sometimes affected by the same problem: a badly concealed superiority complex towards Western people's supposed grossness...Although annoying, this is a beautifully written book, and the pace is fast....I recommend it

I really enjoyed this book. I got so quickly swept away by the narrative that the book flew by.

Changez is the narrator and he is having a conversation with you in a Pakistani cafe. He tells you all about the years he spent in America, as a student and then at one of the most prestigeous companies in NYC. And now here he sits, in a cafe in Lahore with a beard telling you, a complete stranger, about this whole other life while you wait to find out what happened to make him come home.

I have to admit though, that I am still confused by the ending. I put the book down and said "eh?". If anyone could enlighten me I would be grateful. Am I just being thick here?

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