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| The Reluctant Fundamentalist | 
 enlarge | Author: Mohsin Hamid
Publisher: Penguin
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £1.83
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New (26) from £3.06
Avg. Customer Rating:  60 reviews
Sales Rank: 495
Media: Paperback
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 4.8 x 0.9
ISBN: 0141029544
EAN: 9780141029542
ASIN: 0141029544
Publication Date: April 24, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Fabulous September 14, 2007
6 out of 14 found this review helpful
This is a truly wonderful book - superbly written, original, evocative, challenging, extremely thought-provoking. The best thing I've read in several years (and I'm an avid reader) - I've already given copies to numerous friends. I sincerely hope that it wins the Booker, so that it commands the wide readership that a novel of this stature deserves.
Some have criticised the somewhat ambiguous ending. That, for me, is part of the book's strength; I'm enjoying the arguments with the friends who've also read it!
 Could have been so much more August 18, 2007
62 out of 78 found this review helpful
The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a short work - perhaps straying into the novella category - that takes the form of one side of a conversation over a Pakistani cafe table between a man, Changez, and an unvoiced American stranger.
Changez recites his life story - brought up in a family of fading wealth in Pakistan, studying with a prestigious scholarship at Princeton University, and working for a high-paying financial services company - Underwood Samson - in New York. Changez receives praise and opportunity as a reward for his brilliance until world events - the attacks on the World Trade Center and subsequent was and tension in Afghanistan and Pakistan lead him to disillusionment with the west. All this is juxtaposed with advice to the American stranger on menu choices and assurances of good intentions.
The trouble is, the novel lacks any real depth or substance. The narrative technique of interspersing straight biography with casual conversation started to get irritating and was, I suspect, a device to add bulk and texture to a thin narrative. The narrative, too, didn't last long enough to explain how a man who had embraced Mammon with such enthusiasm should, over the space of a fortnight, be prepared to toss it all in for a life of uncertainty back in Pakistan. It's not that such a change of heart is impossible, but it is unlikely enough to require some pretty deep explanation which was not on offer here.
And the ending, when it comes, is so ambiguous that it simply frustrates. Apparently Changez brought the USA to standstill - but without a plausible explanation of how he did it. And the encounter with the American is left hanging. How did the conversation end? Perhaps this was intended to add to the literary effect, but one wonders whether it was a case that Hamid had developed a storyline so far and didn't know how to resolve it.
This is an easy, fast read and is not without some merits. The novel does cause one to question - briefly - how Muslims have been supposed to relate to the USA and its foreign policy in recent years. The title, too, raises a smile. The financial institution is supposed to have an ethos of concentrating on the fundamentals, and as Changez decides the world of high finance is not for him, he becomes a sort of reluctant fundamentalist in one sense and, perhaps, a more willing Fundamentalist in another sense. But overall, one is left feeling that the work could have been so much more with twice the number of pages and without the irritating mono-dialogue.
 A thought provoking read. July 26, 2007
21 out of 29 found this review helpful
The road Changez takes to start the book where it begins is an interesting one. This American educated Pakistani loses his comfort in his new found Western life and seeks a deeper meaning which brings him back to value his own land and culture. The resulting mistrust from this conversion is mirrored in his employers and friends and the book ends in a most provocative manner, highlighting the mistrust and stereotyping that has flourished since 9/11.
This is one mans journey, not a generalisation of how all Pakistanis or Muslims have fared since the atrocious events of 2001.
A good read if you are feeling a little alienated by society July 16, 2007
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
A well-written book although it lacked any real story line... also, it is written rather unrealistically from the perspective of a 22 year old student-cum-consultant post 9/11, who is at one point shown to be nursing a whisky while getting over his ex... now I am no expert when it comes to drinking, but hey - that sounds odd even to me! The back-drop and detail of emotions however couldn't be more accurate. A good read if you feel a little alienated by society.
A shattered dream July 13, 2007
10 out of 16 found this review helpful
Changez, a young Pakistani, tells his story to an American in a restaurant in Lahore.
Shaped as a monologue addressed to a mysterious stranger, the novel is masterfully written . I was really gripped by author's elegant prose and couldn't put this book down.
Educated at Priceton, Changez gets a well-paid job as a financial analyst at Underwood Samson, a New York firm that appraises companies around the world. While he is on holiday in Greece, he meets Erica, a beautiful and desperate girl, and falls in love with her. But Changez seems to be destined to lose everything. In the aftermath of September 11th, he starts to see America from a new perspective and find himself questioning "the manner in which America conducted itself in the world". While Erica , who hasn't overcome the loss of her former boyfriend, sinks into a deep sorrow and then disappears, he decides to return home because he is not willing to be "a servant of American empire". The ending of the story is vague. Changez, who has turned into a teacher at the university in Lahore, is deeply involved in fomenting protests against America and maybe the American listener is about to kill him...
I think that Changez is not well adjusted to American society, in spite of appearances. Before the events of 9/11, he leaves New York for Manila, in order to evaluate a record-music business. While he is riding with his colleagues in a limousine, he is puzzled by the gaze of a jeepney driver: "There was an undisguised hostility in his expression. I had no idea why".
Changez tries to understand why the driver acted this way:" I remained preoccupied whit this matter far longer than I should have, pursuing several possibilities that all assumed - as their unconscious starting point - that he and I shared a sort of Third World sensibility". When one of his colleagues speaks to him, Changez feels himself "much closer to the Filipino driver than to him".
It seems to me that Changez doesn't react strangely when he sees the twin towers fall. He says that is "remarkably pleased". Actually Changez wasn't "in four and half years, never an American". He was only " a young New Yorker with the city at his feet".
However the question of identity emerges in the novel as one of the main issue. When he returns to Pakistan, he must admit that " the inhabitation of America has not entirely ceased". Of course, it is not easy for him to fit into his homeland. Things are a bit different now.
I read with great interest this brief novel and appreciated the analysis of the increasing paranoia affecting America after the collapse of the World Trade Center.
I found very beautiful as well the parts where the writer describes the bazaar in Lahore. You can smell scents, aromas, sounds of this place and you really sense the atmosphere.
I definitely recommend this book.
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