Is anything really what it seems? (The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid)

Member Name: dee778

Product:	The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid
Date:	01/10/09 (78 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent writing and a real sense of menace

Disadvantages: None

'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' impressed me on a number of different levels. It is a sparse, short book which reflects on culture, terrorism, xenophobia, capitalism and mental illness. This may sound like an intimidating list, but the way that Mohsin Hamid subtly weaves these issues into the narrative makes the story one that is very easy to read and totally enthralling.

Like many of the best books, the entire story takes place during one short night. A strange man approaches an American with the words, 'Excuse me sir, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see that I have alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard: I am a lover of America'. This first sentence sets the tone for the whole book, which is in fact a monologue. We learn that the man in question in Changez, a Muslim Pakastani who is living in his home town of Lahore. His American companion is never named, and his speech is never set down on the page, but we know that he is both uncomfortable and worried, as Changez often mentions it: 'why are you looking so alarmed?, please sit down, there is nothing to worry about'. Changez insists on buying his new American friend tea, and then a meal, insisting that this is traditional Lahore hospitality. As the evening progresses, he begins to tell his life story; a story of success which includes an American education at Princetown, a successful career with a large New York corporation, and a relationship with a rich American society girl. The evening seems relaxed and entertaining, but as Changez relates the way that his brilliant career starts to fall into decline after the 9/11 tragedy, so the atmosphere subtly changes. All of a sudden the American's suspicions do not seem so ridiculous , the reader starts to see menace in Changez' tone, and as the tension mounts, we start to wonder who is in control of this chance meeting - is there a more sinister motive, and if so, who is the aggressor and who is the victim?

I started this book feeling fairly bored with the whole setting, reading it as a comment on culture and class rather than looking for a deeper meaning. As I progressed I realised that I was looking at a puzzle, reading a thriller and feeling the tension that is associated with menace. The ability of Mohisin Hamid to create this tension through a monologue is amazing, but emphasises the delicacy of the whole book. Nothing is ever openly stated, and this fits absolutely perfectly with the timbre and tone of Changez' voice. It is almost a cultural subtlety - clothed in formal phrases and polite tones. His disillusion with American consumerism, the get rich quick society, and his gradual decline from Golden boy to bearded suspect is mapped slowly and convincingly. His own feelings are never shown or spoken - the reader is left to conclude whatever he will.

The main impact of the book comes through Changez' voice. Always polite, cultured and grammatically correct but structured in a way that makes it clear that he is not a native English speaker, there is a strange malice to his story that gradually makes the reader more and more uncomfortable. The words he speaks are apparently direct and open, but you never know - is there a veiled threat behind his words? Is the irony that we read into his sentences really there? The voice is everything, creating the atmosphere of the smoky Lahore café without any evocative descriptive paragraphs. When Changez moves on to describe his life in America the words are just as plain. This book is describing people, reactions, events - there is no extravagant scene setting. The threats felt by a Muslim in New York after the 9/11 attacks is described in poignant detail - the suspicious looks, the predominance of the American flag, the sense of a nation closing in on itself and shutting out the foreigner.

I enjoyed the tension and the understatement in this book. It took a little while to get into the rhythm of the gently evolving story and the cadence of the speech, but once I learnt to read beneath the surface I was enthralled. At the end of the book, my first reaction was, 'Is that it?', but this is a complex story, and I found that I thought about the ending in many different ways, interpreting both the dialogue and the ending over and over again, finding something very different every time.
Beautifully written, gradually building tension through excellent construction, this novel manages to describe the complex emotions and fears raised by 9/11 from both sides of the world.

The novel was shortlisted for the 2007 Booker Prize and has won several other awards.

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Most excellent novels have a foundation in personal experience, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the life of Mohsin Hamid echoes that of Changez. Born in Lahore, he completed his education in America and graduated from Princeton University in 1993.He spent several years working as a management consultant in New York, before finally settling down in London in 2001. This is his second novel, but he also writes essays on politics, art and travel as well as journalistic pieces for the major newspapers.
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First published by Hamish Hamilton, 2007
209 pages, ISBN 9780141029542
Available new from Amazon from £4.48

Summary: One of the most unusual books to be shortlisted for the Man Booker