Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by danilanglie
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
4.0
This is a book I wish I'd read with a book club or been taught in a class or something, because I feel like my capacity to fully dissect and appreciate it isn't quite up to snuff? I feel like there are some elements I'm not prepared to grapple with on my own. I got the broad allegorical stuff, and I thought the novel made an elegant case for the idea that fundamentalism, or extremism in some form, is something that can rise up in anybody. Not because they're just inherently evil or bad, but because the world is frightening and people are reactive.
I totally missed that Underwood Sampson stood for "U.S." until I saw somebody else point it out in a review, which made me feel kind of stupid, but I did catch that Erica is, allegorically, America: when you trace her character as a symbol of the nation, her deep and unhealthy devotion to a dead lover named Chris (Christ? Get it?) then becomes something else, a commentary on the way America is attached to the ghost of a religion that comes from somewhere far away. Or something! See this is why I need to talk this through with other people. But Changez having a name with the word "Change" in it, the way he saddles these different identities, the way he feels at home in New York but not in America, and his loyalty and appreciation for Pakistan still anchoring him... it made for an interesting protagonist.
I also thought the narrative style and framing device was pretty cool. The sinister intentions (or lack thereof) of our narrator creep into the story with a good amount of subtlety and build. I loved the cliffhanger ending, too, we never get to know if the American agent dude makes it out alive. This was a quick read that made me think, so I'll call it a win in my book!
I totally missed that Underwood Sampson stood for "U.S." until I saw somebody else point it out in a review, which made me feel kind of stupid, but I did catch that Erica is, allegorically, America: when you trace her character as a symbol of the nation, her deep and unhealthy devotion to a dead lover named Chris (Christ? Get it?) then becomes something else, a commentary on the way America is attached to the ghost of a religion that comes from somewhere far away. Or something! See this is why I need to talk this through with other people. But Changez having a name with the word "Change" in it, the way he saddles these different identities, the way he feels at home in New York but not in America, and his loyalty and appreciation for Pakistan still anchoring him... it made for an interesting protagonist.
I also thought the narrative style and framing device was pretty cool. The sinister intentions (or lack thereof) of our narrator creep into the story with a good amount of subtlety and build. I loved the cliffhanger ending, too, we never get to know if the American agent dude makes it out alive. This was a quick read that made me think, so I'll call it a win in my book!