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The Reluctant Fundamentalist |
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Thursday, 15 November 2007 |
By Mohsin Hamid Hamish Hamilton, 2007:
184p, softcover, Village Voice €18, French News €16
One of the six titles shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker
Prize, this second novel by Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid
has attracted a lot of attention since its release last March.
Rightly so, for its subject is the cooling love affair and violent
break between a young Pakistani named Changez (with its echo
of ‘change’ and Genghiz) and the United States, which opened
its arms to him as a student and allowed him to rise to a top New
York firm of business consultants.
Changez tells his tale in a long evening monologue in a café
in the Old Anarkali district of Peshawar. It is addressed to an
unnamed American, whose satellite phone and shoulder holster
mark him as a CIA agent. We do not hear the other side of the
conversation, but from the occasional changes of tone in
Changez’ confession we infer that the American is ill at ease and dismayed at his host’s rejection
of New World power and abundance.
The title is slightly misleading. Religion has nothing to do with Changez’ change of heart.
The mood in America after the September 11 attacks and Changez’ realisation that he had
become a “janissary” (the equivalent of a Christian mercenary in the Ottoman army) made his
career among America’s business elite seem increasingly hollow. The issue in this strangely
suspenseful novel – we are kept guessing until the last page how the evening will end – is not
politics, but the dignity of being true to oneself.
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