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kktaylor11's review against another edition
challenging
dark
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Several years ago a friend told me I should read this book. I murmured appropriate assent and promptly forgot it. There are so many books in the world and this was another title I'd "get around to reading someday."
Yesterday my daughter got the book list for an upcoming college lit class and the titles caught my eye. The class focuses on the literature of 9/11 through "outside eyes" and this book was at the top of the list. I recognized the title, picked it up, turned it over, opened it up, read a few lines...sat down... and the rest is history.
If you've read my reviews, you know I'm fairly stingy with my 5 star reviews. I save them for Austen and Hawthorne and Morrison and those whose writing makes me want to write. Now I will list Hamid among those names. (Side note - I realized I'd read another of his books a few years ago - Exit West. It's a novella about refugees able to escape through physical doors that drop them into life on the other side of the world. It felt like it brushed the edges of "exceptional" but didn't quite get there....)
I devoured this book...at first, simply captivated by the narrator's voice and unusual style. Changez, the main character, introduces himself as if he is meeting you (the ubiquitous American) in the middle of a Pakistani market, and before you know it, you are sitting down together at a table for tea, a meal, and his life story...the story of how he left Pakistan to find the "American Dream" through the door of a Princeton education, how he found success in a New York acquisitions and valuations firm, and the choices he made following 9/11. I will whole heartedly admit there were moments I felt were heavy handed. (The beard seemed forced...incongruous) - but overall the writing is like a great massage to the brain....layer after layer of gentle touch, with moments of pain as a troubling knot is worked out. This book made ME want to be back in class -- to write papers about the way Hamid so beautifully contrasts his frame story comments with the depth of the story he is recounting: "Here we are not squeamish when it comes to facing the consequences of our desire..." Changez says about the meats dripping fat while roasting in the market - and yet you cannot help but apply the words to the American life he has been describing as well. So many times these moments jumped out-- hidden gems begging to be challenged, discussed, debated. The book (like so many great books) is uncomfortable at times - as an American who lived through 9/11 there were moments I wanted to throw the book across the room...but if you're willing to listen, think and question you can hear an echo of hope still present.
After all, a pile of folded clothes can be a promise of leaving the past behind in rebirth - or they can indicate an imminent attack. It's all in how you choose to view it.
One of the best things I've read this year.
Yesterday my daughter got the book list for an upcoming college lit class and the titles caught my eye. The class focuses on the literature of 9/11 through "outside eyes" and this book was at the top of the list. I recognized the title, picked it up, turned it over, opened it up, read a few lines...sat down... and the rest is history.
If you've read my reviews, you know I'm fairly stingy with my 5 star reviews. I save them for Austen and Hawthorne and Morrison and those whose writing makes me want to write. Now I will list Hamid among those names. (Side note - I realized I'd read another of his books a few years ago - Exit West. It's a novella about refugees able to escape through physical doors that drop them into life on the other side of the world. It felt like it brushed the edges of "exceptional" but didn't quite get there....)
I devoured this book...at first, simply captivated by the narrator's voice and unusual style. Changez, the main character, introduces himself as if he is meeting you (the ubiquitous American) in the middle of a Pakistani market, and before you know it, you are sitting down together at a table for tea, a meal, and his life story...the story of how he left Pakistan to find the "American Dream" through the door of a Princeton education, how he found success in a New York acquisitions and valuations firm, and the choices he made following 9/11. I will whole heartedly admit there were moments I felt were heavy handed. (The beard seemed forced...incongruous) - but overall the writing is like a great massage to the brain....layer after layer of gentle touch, with moments of pain as a troubling knot is worked out. This book made ME want to be back in class -- to write papers about the way Hamid so beautifully contrasts his frame story comments with the depth of the story he is recounting: "Here we are not squeamish when it comes to facing the consequences of our desire..." Changez says about the meats dripping fat while roasting in the market - and yet you cannot help but apply the words to the American life he has been describing as well. So many times these moments jumped out-- hidden gems begging to be challenged, discussed, debated. The book (like so many great books) is uncomfortable at times - as an American who lived through 9/11 there were moments I wanted to throw the book across the room...but if you're willing to listen, think and question you can hear an echo of hope still present.
After all, a pile of folded clothes can be a promise of leaving the past behind in rebirth - or they can indicate an imminent attack. It's all in how you choose to view it.
One of the best things I've read this year.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness, Eating disorder, and Sexual content
Readers should be aware that at the surface level this can seem "Anti-American." The story centers on the main character's reflection on his life in America and choice to leave America. However, a discerning reader will find depth to the analysis, and an open door to the recognition of the positives of America.eve81's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Violence, Racism, Islamophobia, Eating disorder, and Toxic relationship
lovegriefandgender's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Mohsin! You dropped a female character...
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Mental illness
cadybooks's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Racism, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Islamophobia
Moderate: Gun violence
Minor: Colonisation
clar_a's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape and Mental illness
Minor: Suicide
202claire's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Islamophobia, Mental illness, and War
Minor: Eating disorder
fuzz's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Racial slurs, and Mental illness
Minor: Suicide
It is very rare to come across a book you fall in love with after reading the first page. It’s even rarer that that book delivers on that promise. This is one of those books. As I read about the life of Changez (the protagonist) I saw the same hues of his culture that I recognise in my own. Mohsin Hamid also did justice to describing how the sad events of 9/11 affected the lives of every person of South Asian heritage living in the western world. Although the story was short, it was ample for what it was set out to portray. This book will stay with me for a long time.tshepiso's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
I knew from the first chapter of The Reluctant Fundamentalist that I probably wasn’t going to enjoy it. The overwrought and alienating second person and blatant misogyny present from the start immediately put a bad taste in my mouth. Unfortunately, the shackles of required reading forced me to continue with this book well after I was ready to toss it into the ocean.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist is an introspective novella told in the second person from the perspective of a disillusioned Pakistani, Changez to a mysterious American in the streets of Lahore. Changez whisks the reader (unwittingly in my case) to his early twenties and his life as a hopeful post-grad entering the lucrative work of fiscal analysis in New York City. The story explores his relationship with America as a Pakistani migrant through his tumultuous love affair with a former classmate Erica, and his high stakes job in corporate finance.
The most initially off-putting element of this novel was its use of second-person narration. Mohsin Hamid puts the reader into the shoes of a mysterious American man. Through Changez’s probing questions and inference the reader is forced into the position of a stereotypical American patriot in the mid-aughts. This style was likely intentionally disarming and discomfiting and while I can understand why Hamid made the choices he did it doesn’t take away from how alienating doing so made the novel feel. This was a book that felt so specifically written for Bush-era white Americans and as someone so far removed from that perspective, the constant narrow focus on them made this novel feel limited. While having a narrow scope isn’t inherently wrong it did mean there was a distance between me and the narrative that lessened its potential impact.
Even more egregious than the second person was the misogyny dripping from every page of this book. Changez’s relationship with Erica was troubling at best and actively horrifying at its grossest. Changez’s obsession not with being with Erica, but possessing her was abundantly clear from her first scene. Changez misogyny was not subtle; from the way he ogles her body, to his fetishistic view of her mental illness. Being shackled to the perspective of a man who cares so little about the woman he ‘loves’ as a person (with little to no self-reflection of that) was horrifying and every scene about or including Erica was infuriating. I think the most revolting aspect of this part of the book was how Erica’s clinical depression was so often treated as a metaphor or a quirky personality trait. Changez’s complete inability to see Erica as an individual who existed outside of his desire to be with her was maddening. I do have to warn that half-way through this book there is a graphic sex scene that while technically consensual, employs a level of vomit-inducing manipulation that it felt more akin to rape than anything else.
This is a novel that asks a lot of the reader. Hamid’s story is very much up to interpretation and every chapter asks you to question the reliability of the narrator and the purpose of the story. I can see how many find this investigative element engaging and it makes for ripe essay fodder, but I didn’t feel any drive to try and parse meaning from any given line in this story. While trying to find the multiple interpretations of a story may be fun for some, for me it felt trite and pointless.
At this point, I’ve been to several seminars and read various essays about this novel, so I can appreciate the literary merit of Hamid’s work. However, the type of story Hamid was trying to write fundamentally wasn’t for me. I gained very little from reading it. This kind of introspective novel requires a level of personal fulfilment and understanding to be truly enjoyed the work. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any of that.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide, Mental illness, and Hate crime
madde's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content, Mental illness, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts
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