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The Reluctant Fundamentalist | 
 enlarge | Author: Mohsin Hamid
Publisher: Harcourt
Category: Book
List Price: $22.00
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Rating:  105 reviews
Sales Rank: 27297
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 192
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1
ISBN: 0151013047
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780151013043
ASIN: 0151013047
Publication Date: April 3, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: withdrawn library book with several library markings, includes dust cover, very clean copy, good edges, neat cut out on front top cover where library barcode removed
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Product Description
At a cafe table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful meeting . . .
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 infatuation 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 budding 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.
Amazon.com
Mohsin Hamid's first novel, Moth Smoke, dealt with the confluence of personal and political themes, and his second, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, revisits that territory in the person of Changez, a young Pakistani. Told in a single monologue, the narrative never flags. Changez is by turns naive, sinister, unctuous, mildly threatening, overbearing, insulting, angry, resentful, and sad. He tells his story to a nameless, mysterious American who sits across from him at a Lahore cafe. Educated at Princeton, employed by a first-rate valuation firm, Changez was living the American dream, earning more money than he thought possible, caught up in the New York social scene and in love with a beautiful, wealthy, damaged girl. The romance is negligible; Erica is emotionally unavailable, endlessly grieving the death of her lifelong friend and boyfriend, Chris. Changez is in Manila on 9/11 and sees the towers come down on TV. He tells the American, "...I smiled. Yes, despicable as it may sound, my initial reaction was to be remarkably pleased... I was caught up in the symbolism of it all, the fact that someone had so visibly brought America to her knees..." When he returns to New York, there is a palpable change in attitudes toward him, starting right at immigration. His name and his face render him suspect. Ongoing trouble between Pakistan and India urge Changez to return home for a visit, despite his parents' advice to stay where he is. While there, he realizes that he has changed in a way that shames him. "I was struck at first by how shabby our house appeared... I was saddened to find it in such a state... This was where I came from... and it smacked of lowliness." He exorcises that feeling and once again appreciates his home for its "unmistakable personality and idiosyncratic charm." While at home, he lets his beard grow. Advised to shave it, even by his mother, he refuses. It will be his line in the sand, his statement about who he is. His company sends him to Chile for another business valuation; his mind filled with the troubles in Pakistan and the U.S. involvement with India that keeps the pressure on. His work and the money he earns have been overtaken by resentment of the United States and all it stands for. Hamid's prose is filled with insight, subtly delivered: "I felt my age: an almost childlike twenty-two, rather than that permanent middle-age that attaches itself to the man who lives alone and supports himself by wearing a suit in a city not of his birth." In telling of the janissaries, Christian boys captured by Ottomans and trained to be soldiers in the Muslim Army, his Chilean host tells him: "The janissaries were always taken in childhood. It would have been far more difficult to devote themselves to their adopted empire, you see, if they had memories they could not forget." Changez cannot forget, and Hamid makes the reader understand that--and all that follows. --Valerie Ryan
A Conversation with Mohsin Hamid
 Set in modern-day Pakistan, Mohsin Hamid's debut novel, Moth Smoke, went on to win awards and was listed as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His bold new novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, is a daring, fast-paced monologue of a young Pakistani man telling his life story to a mysterious American stranger. It's a controversial look at the dark side of the American Dream, exploring the aftermath of 9/11, international unease, and the dangerous pull of nostalgia. Amazon.com senior editor Brad Thomas Parsons shared an e-mail exchange with Mohsin Hamid to talk about his powerful new book
Read the Amazon.com Interview with Mohsin Hamid
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| Customer Reviews: Read 100 more reviews...
 A Brilliant Novel That Affords the Reader the Stance of an Outsider June 8, 2007
Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States)
105 out of 135 found this review helpful
Mohsin Hamid writes so well that were it not for the propulsive force of his quietly building suspense story, the reader would be tempted to linger over passages of elegantly beautiful prose. THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST is a timely book, yes, but it is far more: the novel underscores the talent of a superlative writer unafraid to place before the public a story that is bound to create a disturbing response at the end of the roller coaster ride.
Cleverly written as a monologue from a Pakistani young man named Changez (a name when pronounced delivers major clues to the story!) as he joins an American in a cafe in Lahore, Pakistan. The story reveals a young lad from a family once well to do in Pakistan, but fractured by the political changes suffered by that country, a lad who goes to America to attend Princeton University where he transforms himself into an 'American stance', performs exceedingly well academically, and joins the wealthy American classmates on jaunts where he encounters the beautiful but mysteriously aloof Erica. Changez and Erica become friends and were it not for Erica's recovering from a loss of her previous lover Chris who died of cancer, the two seem to be destined to become lovers. Erica is from a wealthy family who accepts Changez even more readily when upon graduation he is awarded a position with the prestigious firm Underwood Samson. Changez learns the feeling of the American preoccupation with success and wealth while still being committed to his family ties in Pakistan. While Changez is on a business trip to Manila he watches the 9/11 event and he is surprised that he feels a bit happy that haughty America is being brought to her feet.
Changez returns home finding his physical appearance now a cause for suspicion in the bruised country that afforded him success. He attempts to stay connected with Erica but Erica has retreated into her fragile state of melancholia and is eventually hospitalized. Changez continues his successful climb up the American dream ladder of success until he meets a gentleman Juan-Bautista in Chile who admonishes him that his devotion to his work for American companies might force him to forget the importance of home and family. Changez is changed and his decision regarding his employment, his lack of knowledge of Erica's whereabouts, and his growing anger at America preemptive attacks on countries near his home - all result in his returning to Pakistan, and the encounter with the American at the cafe. And Hamid leaves us there, afloat on a sea of questions and new information about the people we have been attacking and the result is a pungent experience in re-thinking the global atmosphere.
The book is relatively short (184 pages) and since it is written as one extended conversation, it is next to impossible not to read the entire book at one sitting: leaving the story even for a moment would be like leaving a personal encounter - rude. The story is superb, written with facile elegance, and contains views from outside our cloistered world that refreshingly informs us to re-examine our point of view. Highly Recommended on every level. Grady Harp, June 07
"The impending destruction of my personal American dream..." April 3, 2007
Luan Gaines (Dana Point, CA USA)
95 out of 127 found this review helpful
In present day Pakistan, a bearded young man engages in a one-sided discussion with an American, a stranger, conversing through the afternoon and evening at a local cafe. In what is essentially a monologue, Changez, the protagonist, relates his recent past and disillusion with the American dream, the journey that has brought him to this place, time and fate.
A Princeton graduate, Changez looks to a future without impediment, newly hired by a prestigious valuation firm. Although missing his family in Lahore, the twenty-two year old fits perfectly into Underwood Samson, New York City embracing him with its cosmopolitan ambiance, a Pakistani deli near his apartment, the occasional taxi driver who speaks Urdu. Returning from a vacation in Greece, where he has luxuriated in the wealth and privilege of fellow Princeton grads, Changez looks forward to a blooming romance with Erica, a wealthy beauty he met on the islands. Outstanding at his job, his single-mindedness and emotional detachment mark Changez as an employee to watch. While the relationship with Erica remains tentative after they return to the city, Changez is willing to wait, inured to the subtleties of male-female attraction by his culture. To his dismay, the once vivid Erica increasingly withdraws into her past with memories of a former lover, escaping into a world of fantasy.
The shock of 9/11 doesn't immediately impact the Changez's life; dedicated, his work is exemplary, although he is ever more concerned with Erica's aberrant behavior. In the aftermath of the tragedy, a brief visit home is a stark reminder of the differences between the two worlds, Pakistan threatened by India, the United States taking no action to protect an ally in the war on terror. Returning to New York from Lahore, Changez finds that the atmosphere has altered, suddenly conscious of animosity directed at him, the formerly welcoming city turned cold, suspicious and vindictive: "I had always thought of America as a nation that looked forward; for the first time I was struck by its determination to look back."
Beautifully nuanced with fragile immigrant hopes and the tragic annihilation of a promising future, the author paints a provocative picture of post-9/11 reality. Changez is filled with rage, caught between cultures and questioning the great country that has so captured his imagination, his perceptions drastically affected by recent experience. A once unlimited future now truncated by circumstances, Changez questions the falsity of dreams and the danger of delusion: "It is not always possible to restore one's boundaries after they have been blurred and made permeable by a relationship." Even his work is suspect, finance "a primary means by which the American empire exercised its power." In this haunting story of unremitted passion and painful self-discovery, the personal and the political collide. Luan Gaines/ 2007.
 Reluctantly Reviewing June 14, 2007
J. Miller (LA, CA USA)
94 out of 142 found this review helpful
This is a long-winded and mildly amusing piece of hate mail from Pakistan to the United States. The punch line, that "no country inflicts death so readily upon the inhabitants of other countries, frightens so many people so far away, as America," is hardly worth the meandering trek through the self-conscious musings of a directionless Ivy Leaguer.
The book follows a newly graduated Pakistani student, fresh from Princeton, who takes on a posh job valuating companies and falls in love with a waning Ophelia (whose name is Erica). He comes to an abrupt rejection of his financial and educational foundations after a single conversation with an otherwise irrelevant character, and she actually ends up in one of those clicheic gardens behind an inhouse psychiatric facility as he pines away over unrequieted love. That's pretty much the whole plot.
An unnuanced homage to Camus' The Fall, complete with first-person narration, a burly waiter, and a woman by a river, this work fails to honor a better book, like a college sophomore pointing at his professor. It is not so profound, only sarcastic. His admission over smiling on the event of Sept. 11th (p. 72) is not psychologically insightful but childish. This is only reinforced by passing references to Brittany Spears and Top Gun.
The one strength is not of the book but the writer, and that is: he knows how to make it flow. It's a fun read, and it even kind of makes you wish he would write another one, only better. I wouldn't give up on him, but I'd pass over this one.
Don't Read Reviews Of This Novel That Are Plot Summaries June 1, 2007
H. F. Corbin (ATLANTA, GA USA)
83 out of 122 found this review helpful
Like Kazuo Ishiguro's brilliant NEVER LET ME GO, this fantastic novel is one that you should finish before reading reviews since knowing too much of the plot will spoil this story for you. Also set aside enough time to finish THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST in one sitting for you will not be be able to put it down. I was hooked by page 4--the novel is slim, consisting of 184 pages but it is too rich and intense to be much longer-- when the narrator describes Princeton University as raising her skirt "for the corporate recruiters who came onto campus and--as you say in America--showed them some skin." About that narrator-- he is a Pakistani named Changez who is now 25 years old who is telling his story to an unnamed nervous American as they have a meal at a cafe in Lahore ("there is no need to reach under your jacket, I assume to grasp your wallet"). Educated at Princeton and the recipient of financial aid, he accepted a position at the high-powered financial firm of Underwood Samson immediately out of college and worked tirelessly, always achieving more than his elite American co-workers. He also fell in love with the beautiful but sad American Erica. He was in Manilla on assignment on that ignominious day of September 11 when his world, and those of many others, changed. Enough of the plot. Changez' extended dramatic monologue will affect you in many different ways. You will be at once sympathetic to this complex character but repelled by him.
Mr. Hamid's richly nuanced novel will keep you reading as the tension builds. He asks difficult questions that many of us would choose to avoid, specifically about the perception of the United States in the Middle East and other parts of the world as well and the reasons why we are hated so. In Changez he has created a character that you will not soon forget. The title of the novel speaks multitudes.
 It's Sad That People Would Find this Controversial April 23, 2007
George B. Sears (Cedar City, UT USA)
40 out of 55 found this review helpful
This novel is told as a monologue, which works extremely well. I guess the characters are easily made into icons, Changez, Erica, and Chris. Change, America, and Christ. Erica loves Chris, but Chris is dead. Changez loves Erica, but the relationship collapses after 9/11, as Erica sinks into the past.
Changez is a Pakistani who graduates from Princeton. He gets a great job as a financial analyst. He cannot accept what is happening, as America asserts itself in his native lands. A year or so after leaping onto the ladder of success, he throws it all away.
There is no question, it seems to me, that Americans make great financial analysts, across any borders. On the other hand, the ability to analyze other cultures is less developed. This book is from the perspective of someone who knows America, but comes to rage against America.
Erica cannot truly see Changez because she is lost in the past, with Chris. And yet Changez cannot simply walk away, even when the hopelessness and futility is obvious. When Changez returns to Pakistan, he finds a pursuit that clearly pleases him. But now the character is completely wrapped up, emotionally, with America, as he was with Erica. There is an impression of a deluded, self-important America but also of an inablity to cope with America, except with rage. It's not a pleasing cycle of pathology.
The way this story is crafted is very deft and enjoyable. The ending is awkward, but reflects the undefined nature of the man to whom the monologue is addressed. The title of the novel is a little odd.
The central character is appealing, but not compelling. He is young. He lacks for experience. His emotions are complex, but they ring true. This is more like the first chapters of a novel that follows the character for another 20 years, or whatever.
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