|
| 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: 79452
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
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Subtle Fundamentalism May 7, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
It's difficult to describe a novel written in the form of a monologue as a thriller, but this is how it's being marketed. As the other reviews will show (and their mixed ratings) this is a far from conventional read and you won't find any classic "thriller" territory here.
That said, there is much in this which is gripping. Ostensibly, the plot is that a Pakistani man, Changez, spots an American in Lahore and starts talking to him. He ends up telling him about his life in America as a way of reassuring him that he's not someone to be afraid of and through recounting his experiences particularly after 9/11, he explains how his resentment of America developed. What grows is a portrait of how the American response to 9/11 affected and alienated Asian nationals resident in the US.
I found this profoundly but subtly moving. I was kept reading by the need to understand why Changez was back in Lahore and the increasing curiosity about his unnamed companion. This is an important read for people interested in current developments across the world; it's not about radicalism but how subtly people can be turned to more fundamental stances and how conterproductive big sweeping responses to terrorism can be.
 Distinctly average May 6, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
I feel none the wiser on the clash of our two cultures having read this distinctly average book.
On a better note, it didn't take long...
 Fundamentally bad May 2, 2008
5 out of 15 found this review helpful
Much expectation, if only because of the whizzo title and barrels of praise from the respectable end of the US and UK press.
Even the title is a misnomer, alas: the narrator-hero is no fundamentalist, just a rich young chap from Lahore who gets a bit miffed at being body-searched at airports (so?) or looked at suspiciously post-9/11 in his adopted country (the States), and grows a beard in protest. It's really the dullest of memoirs, and about as controversial as a wet sparkler: no discussion of the treatment of women in Pakistan, for instance, let alone any rejoicing at 9/11 - just a sort of mild version of some of the more innocuous entries on the Guardian website's blog. And we are supposed to believe that he is telling all this to an American outside a Lahore restaurant - including details of his (flaccid) sex life. One of the basic precepts of fiction is that we believe in the narrative premise, even if the action takes place on Mars; it's what makes writing novels so damn hard.
This book is a fraud perpetrated by the laughable bookselling industry. Yet it's been at least shortlisted for every prize that moves. What more can one say?
 Fundamentally flawed... April 28, 2008
9 out of 18 found this review helpful
A very disappointing novel. I was looking forward to reading it because it had quite a few mentions in the media, presumably down to the Zeitgeisty, potentially controversial subject matter. Certainly letting slip that the protagonist felt jubilant about 9/11 is going to guarantee you a few plugs. However I didn't find it a lot of fun to read. The conceit of making it a monologue with an unheard interlocutor at a restaurant table just seemed pretentious, and resulted in some clumsy one-sided phrasing that reminded me of a desperate ventriloquist.
The story itself had the potential to be a fascinating study of East-West relations, of change, of loss, of cross-cultural affairs and friendships. But that was all undermined by the writing, which laboured points dreadfully (think of the many significant hand gestures of Changez's boss, or the alternative implications of "fundamentals") and used right-on versions of stereotypes (troubled rich girl, macho captain of industry who turns out to be gay, nostalgic glimpses of harmonious family life in the Old Country). The result is that the reader is left with no sense of the process and outcomes of change, just an overpowering impression of a political axe being ground.
The author's wry smile in the large photo on the back endpaper was the final straw! I felt he knew that, in my wasting an afternoon reading this, he had played a successful joke on me.
Elegant short novel that addresses urgent issues April 19, 2008
19 out of 30 found this review helpful
Mohsin Hamaid's short novel reminds me stylistically of Nabakov and Camus but its subject matter is very contemporary: the impact of 9/11 on a young Pakistani in New York and on his complicated web of relationships. The combination makes for a gripping read and a great literary contribution to an understanding of the tragic divide between the Muslim world and the West.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
