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A review by spectracommunist
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
4.0
This book wasn't even in my tbr, I just felt like reading something indigenous so I came across this, borrowed from a neighbor and started reading it. As this is a book from South Asian contemporary literature - I was in the mood of critically finding all the flaws (Yes, I'm Indian and only a few great works of literature emerge from here - and same is for Pakistan).
Initially, I was really pissed off, the narration was so incovenient - a pakistani telling all his story whilst he was in America to some American gringo for no apparant reason in an exquisite cafe and the entire conversations of two people were told by single one, It was like 'So you were saying that you feel much hot around here', 'my voice is rising? you're right.' ... It seems like the gringo was some dumbass. The another thing was that the protagonist [Changez] was very capitalist and selfish, I didn't like the way he was delivering the words, so egocentric. Altough, the chemistry between Changez and Erica was good that kept me going or else I would've dumped this much early.
The thing is that Changez was such a brat but after the events of 9/11 he suffered from Identity crises and anxieties of dejection from his love, he became a truly sensible character - that was such a notable transformation, I mean this is what great stories are - a character is flawful initially, he experiences and learns from situations out of comfort zones and the result is a great change in him. This is an account of injustice on muslim immigrants (especially post 9/11) leading to alienation when one has patriotic feelings towards his own heritage and as a result how educated people are reluctantly drawn towards fundamentalism.
The narration has some flaws here but the unraveling of plot was quite good, the second half is quite good, like a classic there isn't any unrequired action or much melodramatic events - that's admirable. It ended well, the climax scene was quite good.
Initially, I was really pissed off, the narration was so incovenient - a pakistani telling all his story whilst he was in America to some American gringo for no apparant reason in an exquisite cafe and the entire conversations of two people were told by single one, It was like 'So you were saying that you feel much hot around here', 'my voice is rising? you're right.' ... It seems like the gringo was some dumbass. The another thing was that the protagonist [Changez] was very capitalist and selfish, I didn't like the way he was delivering the words, so egocentric. Altough, the chemistry between Changez and Erica was good that kept me going or else I would've dumped this much early.
The thing is that Changez was such a brat but after the events of 9/11 he suffered from Identity crises and anxieties of dejection from his love, he became a truly sensible character - that was such a notable transformation, I mean this is what great stories are - a character is flawful initially, he experiences and learns from situations out of comfort zones and the result is a great change in him. This is an account of injustice on muslim immigrants (especially post 9/11) leading to alienation when one has patriotic feelings towards his own heritage and as a result how educated people are reluctantly drawn towards fundamentalism.
The narration has some flaws here but the unraveling of plot was quite good, the second half is quite good, like a classic there isn't any unrequired action or much melodramatic events - that's admirable. It ended well, the climax scene was quite good.