The Reluctant Fundamentalist has been all the rage this IFFI(the movie that is). As such, the book also deserves its due. The author MohsinHamid delivers the entire plot of the story in a monologue of sorts where aPakistani man meets an American in Lahore and regales him of his tales in acafé over tea and dinner.
While in conversation, Changez (the Pakistani) reveals hisneed to live the American dream in the back drop of New York City, right fromgoing to an Ivy League college, to meeting the perfect American woman (Erica)and finally making it in a high powered corporate career as an analyst in avery promising firm. Changez was content with the path that his life was takinghim on until the catastrophic collapse of the twin towers and the aftermath ofterror that follows soon after. The book describes Changez’s guilt and innerturmoil of being in the very country that wages wars on the less powerfulcountries and the racial discrimination that he is subjected to because of hiscolour and religion.
The self-loathing felt by Changez is narrated in a sardonicyet matter of fact way as he feels that living the American dream is no longerwhat he wants anymore and he gives it all up. The reader can almost feel theAmerican’s discomfiture as he listens to Changez’s tale of turmoil andintimacies. Becoming increasingly uneasy in New York, Changez eventually beginsto question his values upon a trip to Chile, where an elderly publisherdiscusses the Crusades with him, with whom Changez can instantly identify. Hestops work and resolves to leave his job at Underwood Samson. Before returningto Lahore, he attempts to visit Erica once more, but is told she has gonemissing. A visit to her mother provides him with a copy of the novel she hadwritten, but not published, as a memory of her, and with it Changez returns tohis birthplace.
While the book is slow paced for the first 80 or so oddpages the story builds up toward the latter half of the tale, as the monologuestarts becoming ominous. The reader is definitely left guessing almost to thevery end.
