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| The Reluctant Fundamentalist | 
 enlarge | Author: Mohsin Hamid
Publisher: Harcourt
Category: Book
List Price: £12.29
Buy Used: £0.33
You Save: £11.96 (97%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  60 reviews
Sales Rank: 84696
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
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 2, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Reluctant review? May 26, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was another book shortlisted for the Booker last year and another about relations between the Christian and Muslim worlds. It's a very clever idea, being a dramatic monologue where Changez, a successful product of American education, sits in a cafe in Lahore and tells an American of how he thrived in New York both in his career and his love for an elegant wealthy woman.
As he tells of his life and how the events of September 11th changed his attitudes, we gradually see that the American listening is not just another tourist being monopolised by a local, but that a twist at the end is emerging.
I enjoyed the style and structure and the way the ending was hinted at but not revealed. I thought Changez' character was a fascinating mixture showing how, superficially at least, the two worlds can merge. It did reveal to some extent how American attitudes to other countries can frustrate and irritate other people to varying extents.
However, Changez' change [interesting choice of name!] did not convince me totally. The idea an old guy in Chile could say just a few words that would alter a Princeton graduate's whole world viewpoint seems unlikely and the way Erica, so pivotal in his life for so long, should fade away was also unconvincing. Nevertheless, this short book [a novel under 200 pages these days!] was easy to read and very thought-provoking, and I recommend it.
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 Very disappointing! May 25, 2008
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
I completely agree with some of the comments above. I was looking forward to reading this book for a while and when I did, was sorely disappointed! One the one sided conversation is extremely annoying...why could we not read the other character talking himself? Why did Changez have to reiterate everything? Argh! I thought the one sided monologue was simply an introduction, but quite a few pages in i realised that this was how the story would be told.
I agree that there is no depth in the book, we dont actually really see why Changez changed (or at least I didnt) and the ending is such a let down, why be cryptic about it?
To reiterate another reviewer 'it could've been so much more'.
Insightful and provocative May 24, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I enjoyed this novel and read it in one sitting. I found it most unusual - it is written as a conversational narrative between two people although is actually a monologue. The characters described are complex and haunting; the scene is set in a Lahore cafe.
I liked the unusual writing style and found it to be a gripping yarn; elegant, suspicious, provocative and insightful and definitely a novel of our times. I would thoroughly recommend.
Fundamentally excellent May 18, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I have been so shocked to read some bad reviews of this book on the site - it's fantastic. Yes, a monologue takes a little getting used to but it's done with humour and style. To criticise a book because you don't like a photo of the author smiling on the back cover beggars belief - you're meant to read the words, not look at the pictures. And if you do read the words they are gripping. True, I finished the book not knowing if he kills his listener, sets him up or indeed gets killed himself - but the ambiguity is deliberate and I can imagine book clubs around the world arguing the question for years to come. What not to like, a modern tale, told in a modern way. Fabulous!
 Could have been so much more May 15, 2008
7 out of 9 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.
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