At a cafe table in Lahore, a Pakistani man begins the tale that has led to his fateful meeting with an uneasy American stranger...Changez is living an immigrant's dream of America. He thrives on the energy of New York, his work at an elite firm, and his budding relationship. For a time, it seems that nothing will stand in the way of his meteoric rise to success. But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his relationship crumbling and his exalted status overturned. Allegiances are subsequently unearthed, proving themselves more fundamental than money, power and maybe even love.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
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Review
"A fantastic piece of work, superbly considered and controlled, with a lovely stillness and wisdom at its heart"
-- The Times
"An elegant, artful, haunting novella - a deceptively simple narrative that is in fact deeply ambiguous" -- Jo Glanville, Observer Books of the Year
"From the start, I was gripped...There's an almost delightful allegorical symmetry to the flow of events, as well as a sensuousness and finish that might belong to some other form of art: music, perhaps...Hamid manages marvellously well in creating a novel that's rendered entirely in terms of the spoken word, and governed by the shape of what's evaded or not uttered" -- Amit Chaudhuri, London Review of Books
"I read Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist with increasing admiration. It is beautifully written - what a joy it is to find such intelligent prose, such clarity of thought and exposition - and superbly constructed. The author has managed to tighten the screw of suspense almost without our being aware it is happening, and the result is a tale of enormous tension. I read a lot of thrillers - or rather I start reading a lot of thrillers, and put most of them down - but this is more exciting than any thriller I've read for a long time, as well as being a subtle and elegant analysis of the state of our world today. I was enormously impressed" -- Philip Pullman
"If a book had to be praised for its merits in defining the anxieties of our post-9/11 society, then Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist would be the one to win" -- Marta Simonetti-Whitford, Guardian Books of the Year --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
-- The Times
"An elegant, artful, haunting novella - a deceptively simple narrative that is in fact deeply ambiguous" -- Jo Glanville, Observer Books of the Year
"From the start, I was gripped...There's an almost delightful allegorical symmetry to the flow of events, as well as a sensuousness and finish that might belong to some other form of art: music, perhaps...Hamid manages marvellously well in creating a novel that's rendered entirely in terms of the spoken word, and governed by the shape of what's evaded or not uttered" -- Amit Chaudhuri, London Review of Books
"I read Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist with increasing admiration. It is beautifully written - what a joy it is to find such intelligent prose, such clarity of thought and exposition - and superbly constructed. The author has managed to tighten the screw of suspense almost without our being aware it is happening, and the result is a tale of enormous tension. I read a lot of thrillers - or rather I start reading a lot of thrillers, and put most of them down - but this is more exciting than any thriller I've read for a long time, as well as being a subtle and elegant analysis of the state of our world today. I was enormously impressed" -- Philip Pullman
"If a book had to be praised for its merits in defining the anxieties of our post-9/11 society, then Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist would be the one to win" -- Marta Simonetti-Whitford, Guardian Books of the Year --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
About the Author
Mohsin Hamid grew up in Lahore, attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School and worked for several years as a management consultant in New York. His first novel, Moth Smoke, was published in ten languages, won a Betty Trask Award, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. His essays and journalism have appeared in Time, the New York Times and the Guardian, among others. Mohsin Hamid currently lives, works and writes in London.
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First Sentence
EXCUSE ME, SIR, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
EXCUSE ME, SIR, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What I liked about this book is that we only get one viewpoint, that of the narrator who briefly recounts his recent history to an anonymous American in the form of a monologue. We never hear the American's dialogue directly - just our narrator's response to him (and these were a very telling and useful plot device).
It's what we're not told that I really like about this book: it's ambiguous, intriguing and full of suspense. There is a clear tension in the conversation, but the source of the tension is left to the reader to decide. Is the American under threat, or is he the one posing the threat? Is there even a threat at all or were both reacting in a way that demonstrates their own prejudices (with wariness and suspicion)? I especially like how the ambiguity remains long after the last page, a clear illustration of the current state of the world and the lack of understanding between the east and west.
One criticism is that the narrator doesn't speak like a Princeton graduate who has spent many years in America. I found that a little patronising, but perhaps the author thought it would lend an authenticity. The language was easy to follow and flowed very well though.
I have given this book 4 stars because I found it challenged me and my preconceptions. The open ending left me with lots to think about, and I thought about the issues it raised long after I finished the book.
It's what we're not told that I really like about this book: it's ambiguous, intriguing and full of suspense. There is a clear tension in the conversation, but the source of the tension is left to the reader to decide. Is the American under threat, or is he the one posing the threat? Is there even a threat at all or were both reacting in a way that demonstrates their own prejudices (with wariness and suspicion)? I especially like how the ambiguity remains long after the last page, a clear illustration of the current state of the world and the lack of understanding between the east and west.
One criticism is that the narrator doesn't speak like a Princeton graduate who has spent many years in America. I found that a little patronising, but perhaps the author thought it would lend an authenticity. The language was easy to follow and flowed very well though.
I have given this book 4 stars because I found it challenged me and my preconceptions. The open ending left me with lots to think about, and I thought about the issues it raised long after I finished the book.
39 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I had planned to read The Reluctant Fundamentalist out of sheer curiosity as to what made the character a reluctant fundamentalist and how that would manifest itself. On reading the book, I was delighted by the nuance and subtlety underlying the title of the book.
Mohsin Hamid's story is beautifully written and told by Changez, the main character and first person narrator whom some might consider unreliable, given the technique adopted by Hamid. The setting is Anarkali a district in Lahore, Pakistan. Changez, who has had the benefit of an Ivy League College education and subsequently employment with a trouble shooting company, meets an American, befriends him and over dinner Changez tells the story of his experience in America. Everything is seen through the eyes of Changez, even the tone and atmosphere of the story is created by him.
Superfically, it could be argued that the premise on which the novel is based is implausible. Two strangers meet for the first time and one allows the other to pour out his soul. Yet one of the great achievements of Hamid is that he was able to draw me into Changez's musings. The reader easily becomes a substitute for the American and is keen to listen to Changez. For me it was this that made the primise of the novel plausible. I don't know how Hamid did it but it is a great artistic achievement.
Hamid's technique is not new but it was certainly daring and risky to narrate the story in this manner, solely through the eyes of Changez. The techinque is reminiscence of that found in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness where Chalie Marlow, a first person narrator, spins a yarn to companions about his seafaring days. Like Marlow's story, I found Changez's story deeply touching.... Read more ›
Mohsin Hamid's story is beautifully written and told by Changez, the main character and first person narrator whom some might consider unreliable, given the technique adopted by Hamid. The setting is Anarkali a district in Lahore, Pakistan. Changez, who has had the benefit of an Ivy League College education and subsequently employment with a trouble shooting company, meets an American, befriends him and over dinner Changez tells the story of his experience in America. Everything is seen through the eyes of Changez, even the tone and atmosphere of the story is created by him.
Superfically, it could be argued that the premise on which the novel is based is implausible. Two strangers meet for the first time and one allows the other to pour out his soul. Yet one of the great achievements of Hamid is that he was able to draw me into Changez's musings. The reader easily becomes a substitute for the American and is keen to listen to Changez. For me it was this that made the primise of the novel plausible. I don't know how Hamid did it but it is a great artistic achievement.
Hamid's technique is not new but it was certainly daring and risky to narrate the story in this manner, solely through the eyes of Changez. The techinque is reminiscence of that found in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness where Chalie Marlow, a first person narrator, spins a yarn to companions about his seafaring days. Like Marlow's story, I found Changez's story deeply touching.... Read more ›
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By John Hope
Format:Paperback
Given the fertile topic, the author could have made a much more convincing plot. One can easily understand how persons at the sharp end of US foreign policy could come to hate the USA. However, the narrator in this book, living out the 'American Dream' in New York, begins to resent the USA AFTER 9/11, based largely on the resultant US response to that attack, rather than the ostensible provocation that led to it. To what extent the narrators's emotional immaturity - after all he is only 22 - and consequent inability to deal with an unhappy infatuation with a somewhat mentally disturbed American woman, contributes towards his anti-American sentiments, is not obvious. And finally, the provocation to the US of the narrators's eventual role as a university lecturer in Lahore, inciting anti-American demonstrations, is disproportionate to the hint that an assassin has been sent to take him out. Assassins cost money to train and operate and the US is unlikely to use them to whack out a somewhat strategically insignificant academic in Pakistan. This book could really have been an excellent read, but I found it disappointing.
92 of 101 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Finely worked prose covering deeply felt issues but too unresolved to reach the highest marks
31 Oct 2007
By Rivercassini
Format:Hardcover
There is nothing bloated or overdone about Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Yet this sparse, finely cropped short novel tackles some of the challenging issues. Changez, a Pakistani Muslim from a once wealthy family in Lahore, experiences his own version of the American Dream when his talent and his Princeton scholarship lead him to a high-flying job in the world of New York finance and to relationship with a beautiful, enigmatic all-American girl who represents his passport into high society as well. But, over aromatic food and exotic drinks back in Lahore, Changez relates in a one-sided conservation with an American traveller how he never felt entirely at ease and how the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the subsequent repercussions - both political and personal ones - roused him from his American Dream: his reluctance to follow the advice of his mentor in business to focus on the fundamentals is replaced by an hankering to concentrate on fundamentals of a very different sort.
Yet at times the very sparsity which makes the novel so compelling leaves the reader in a void of ignorance. One is, for instance, driven to seek to understand Changez's conversion but the text provides so little challenge to Changez's narrative that it is left flimsy, incomplete and thus unresolved. This is perhaps Hamid's intention - to set out clearly that there are no easy answers; that Westerners will always fail to understand the East. In that sense this is a deeply unsettling novel and leaves one wishing for just a little more, a little more insight, a little more depth. The sense of `unfinishnessed' is only heightened by the ambiguous, unresolved but perfectly composed ending.... Read more ›
Yet at times the very sparsity which makes the novel so compelling leaves the reader in a void of ignorance. One is, for instance, driven to seek to understand Changez's conversion but the text provides so little challenge to Changez's narrative that it is left flimsy, incomplete and thus unresolved. This is perhaps Hamid's intention - to set out clearly that there are no easy answers; that Westerners will always fail to understand the East. In that sense this is a deeply unsettling novel and leaves one wishing for just a little more, a little more insight, a little more depth. The sense of `unfinishnessed' is only heightened by the ambiguous, unresolved but perfectly composed ending.... Read more ›
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3.6 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Insightful
Mohsin Hamid writes the book well with two opposing narratives combined into one.
His romantic relationship serves as a metaphor between the east and west. Read more
His romantic relationship serves as a metaphor between the east and west. Read more
Published 6 days ago by Tania Rahman
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting, but...
The book is worth reading because of the subject matter that is so relevant to our time. However, I felt I was at a rather arid academic lecture and little was revealed that I did... Read more
Published 9 days ago by Dr. L. Alberg
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reluctant Fundamentalist
First-rate book, highly relevant in these troubled times. Style of writing: extremely readable and atmospheric. Difficult to put down. Words used sparingly.
Published 13 days ago by N Gregory
5.0 out of 5 stars
did he - or was it the other one?
... or maybe nothing happens ? ..... ? the most enlightening and suspenseful read in a long while.
Is it sinister? I do hope the movie does it justice? Read more
Is it sinister? I do hope the movie does it justice? Read more
Published 14 days ago by susan kirrage
2.0 out of 5 stars
Awful
It is one of the worst books that I have ever read.I am so bored with it. I read all different books but this,I will finish it,then it's the charity shop.
Published 16 days ago by Karen Talbott
5.0 out of 5 stars
Keeps you guessing til the final word and afterwards
Very well written and an interesting take on a very complex subject. I would thoroughly recommend to all who are interested in the politics of today.
Published 19 days ago by Katie Cox
5.0 out of 5 stars
What a find
My daughter recommended this ( English undergraduate) fantastc book . She's introduced me to a new author. refreshing style and
intersting story line
intersting story line
Published 27 days ago by J. Davis
5.0 out of 5 stars
engaging from beginning to end
An engaging book from page 1. Beautifully written and makes you consider life in anothers shoes. I would definately recommend and will search out others by the same author.
Published 1 month ago by karen smith
5.0 out of 5 stars
an unusual slant on the subject
The story is written in the first person of a young man living in New York who is a Muslim. It is interesting to read the analysis of recent events through his eyes. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Maria Elena
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent condition
As good as new and I am looking forward to reading it as soon as possible. Many thanks - well worth it
Published 1 month ago by Catherine Strickland
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