The Reluctant Fundamentalist

CONTENT WARNING: too long and too personal for a book review!!!

So it's taken me longer to think of how to review this book than to read it!!!

First of all, the narration and flow of this book are insane, it hooks you from the very first sentence and it's just so hard to put the book down. Part of it is because it is written as if it was the literal transcription of what a man in the streets of Lahore is saying: he tells a story, using the 2nd person, to another character, with little interjections such as "Oh you're done with your drink? Let me order another one before I continue my story" - but this whole 2nd person thing makes it almost as it was stopping you in the streets of Lahore and telling you his story. Plus very well written idk how to describe it but i really vibed with his use of beautiful vocabulary and very like immersive description of things. Anywhomst,

Onto the content........ Man!!!! Imo this book talks about the hegemony of the capitalist definition of "the good life". You know the premise: an individualistic, consumerist, status- and profit-driven definition, successfully exported to the rest of the world. The story takes you into the pursuit (and achievement) of the American dream by a young Pakistani man, lures you into it in all its meritocratic splendor - and once you're equally seduced, it unveils the dark foundations and principles sustaining it.

This book affected me greatly because 1) i am a child of capitalism after all, already seduced by this narrow idea of success long ago, and 2) I read it at a time where I've been faced very closely with two (seemingly) opposed sets of values: the individualistic vs the communal, the transactional vs the altruistic, the hustle vs the enjoyment, the strife for 'more' vs the strife for 'enough', even the urban vs the rural.

I too left my country in this pursuit of a "good life", left for a country where hints of the dualisms abovementioned keep on popping up, and it is only in recent years that I stop, reconsider, recalibrate - what does a good life mean to me, and is that contradictory with the life I'm living now? What does this mean for me and my future, which choices do I need to make? OH WELL.

TL;DR: as you can see this book has touched me deeply and there is for sure some bias but I can confidently say itll be an interesting read for anyone! Shout out to @Ivetypie, 4ever grateful for the tip xoxoxo

Ein junger pakistanischer Mann versucht in Amerika bildungs- und jobmäßig durchzustarten, muss sich einerseits mit dem antimuslimischen Rasissmus nach 9/11 auseinandersetzen und andererseits mit seinem Crush, die in tiefer Trauer um ihren toten Freund ist.

Fand die asymmetrische Liebesbeziehung sehr nachvollziehbar (er bezeichnete es irgendwo als Dreiecksbeziehung mit ihr und dem toten Lover), aber wie der Protagonist mit ihr in körperlichen Situationen unging, war sehr unangenehm, es kam einfach nichts von ihr und er versuchte trotzdem mit ihr zu schlafen ... sehr befremdlich der Vergleich ihres Geschlechtsteils mit einer 'Wunde'. Da fass ich mir nur an den Kopf, wie man als Typ so schreiben kann.

Sehr gut war beschrieben, wie bedrohlich er auf weiße Amerikaner*innen wirkt und mit welcher Feindseligkeit und Angst dem Protagonisten begegnet wird, zB weil er darauf besteht, einen Bart zu tragen. Eingerahmt ist das Ganze als eine Erzählung an einen US-Amerikaner in Pakistan, der das ganze Spektrum antimuslimischer Ressentiments ihm gegenüber zu zeigen scheint.

Mohsin Hamid has written a novella that is introspective, nuanced, and profound. It is told in flashback, by a young man named Changez, in one long conversation with an American who is visiting Pakistan.

Changez traveled from Lahore, Pakistan to the U.S. to study at Princeton, where he performed so impressively that he landed a prestigious job in finance in New York City. He also met a woman named Erica, and fell in love with her as well as the city. For awhile, his life seemed almost perfect, more than he had ever imagined for himself. He detailed his life at work, and how his romance with Erika progressed, until--9/11 happened.

His story, his life, was made more complicated by events that followed. He observed that the Americans around him seemed to have become nostalgic for an earlier time, and strangers looked at him with suspicion.

"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. Living in New York was suddenly like living in a film about the Second World War; I, a foreigner, found myself staring out at a set that ought to be viewed not in Technicolor but in grainy black and white. What your fellow countrymen longed for was unclear to me--a time of unquestioned dominance? of safety? of moral certainty? I did not know--but that they were scrambling to don the costumes of another era was apparent. I felt treacherous for wondering whether that era was fictitious, and whether--if it could indeed be animated--it contained a part written for someone like me."



Meanwhile, there was a scary conflict between India and Pakistan, while the U.S., the giant country that so often meddled in the affairs other countries, did nothing to help. Changez developed an angst that made it impossible to keep his mind on his job--or sleep. He was feeling extreme guilt about leaving his family in a dangerous place.

Meanwhile, Erica was having her own mental problems, and once again, Changez felt powerless to help. Actually, both Erika and Changez were struggling with identity issues, of a sort. Neither was sure how to go on. For Erika, it was a past trauma that she could not get over, and it affected everything in her life.

This is beautifully written, and my summary is spare, because there are some things that should not be given away. I was moved to read this after seeing the movie version, which was basically loyal, but not completely.

The way the book ends is brilliant. And it's short. I recommend it!