Fundamental Differences

A review of Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Amy D'Aureli

The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Mohsin Hamid. Harcourt, 2007. 192 pp., $22 (hardcover).

In an interview on the Harcourt Books website promoting The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid states that he has “written from a stance that is both critical of and loving toward America.” Published in 2007, this bold novel takes on the divide between east and west, one that runs far deeper than Americans may have realized. At a time of great movement and potential change in our country’s political future, Mohsin Hamid has taken on a challenging task: presenting readers with the story of a young man from Pakistan who uncovers major flaws in the American dream. Hamid is a notable Pakistani author, whose first novel, Moth Smoke, was published in 2000.

From the first page, The Reluctant Fundamentalist is surprising. Narrated by Changez, a man in Lahore, Pakistan, who curiously encounters an American man and invites him to share tea and an evening meal with him, Changez address the reader, drawing him or her into a detailed and uneasy telling of his experiences in America. His is the only voice we are given throughout the novel, the sole individual perspective of one man, whom we may choose to trust, or not.

Changez’s story mysteriously unfolds as he attempts to relate to an unidentified American man, recounting his Princeton education, his career at Underwood Samson, a prestigious Manhattan business appraisal firm, and his path towards acceptance into New York high society. Throughout his forays into this new life, Changez was a successful, Americanized, young man.

But Mohsin Hamid never glosses over any glaring differences that arose amongst Changez and his peers. Changez, for instance, reveals early on that his family in Pakistan, once part of the higher class, had a reputation that was losing prominence in a state of financial struggle. Ideas about money and value are constantly being worked out in Changez’s mind. A scholarship student among wealthy and aloof Princeton classmates on a vacation in Greece, Changez notices an attitude that sets him apart. “I…found myself wondering by what quirk of human history my companions – many of whom I would have regarded as upstarts in my own country, so devoid of refinement were they – were in a position to conduct themselves in the world as though they were its ruling class.”

As the novel progresses, with frequent interruptions from the vague, conversational narrative taking place in Pakistan, Changez’s isolation continues to grow. He reflects upon his relationship with Erica, also a Princeton graduate, which is never fully realized. She is emotionally tied up in the memory of her ex-boyfriend, Chris, who died of cancer. Changez’s challenged feelings of self-worth carry over to his position at Underwood Samson, where he travels to different businesses in and outside of the United States, evaluating their past and future success.

Changez tells the American that he no longer wanted to work for this company. Hamid presents the idea of the “janissary,” or a young man who is conscripted into a strict and dominating army to fight against his own people. Changez starts to believe that his role at Underwood Samson has become that of a janissary in America, “teasing out the true nature of those drivers that determine an asset’s value”. And in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, he feels that he is neglecting his family in Pakistan, a place that becomes less stable as eastern and western tensions rise.

Mohsin Hamid had completed this novel before this monumental and devastating event had taken place. “The first draft…was completed in the summer of 2001, before September 11. The catastrophe that followed swamped my story; it was years later that I had something that could be salvaged.” He understood that to leave this subject matter out of the book would ignore quite a significant, even offensive point of view on the terrorist attacks, one that, nonetheless, needed to be spoken of. While watching the news coverage of the attacks, Changez explains that he was “remarkably pleased…caught up in the symbolism of it all, the fact that someone had so visibly brought America to her knees.” His reaction becomes yet another isolating factor for him in America.

For the novel’s characters and places, the terrorist attacks also bring about an emphasis on nostalgia. America longs for a peaceful and stable past, Changez wishes to return home to his family in Pakistan, and Erica loses herself completely to depression.

As these struggles all intensify, Changez’s statements to the American man become more audacious, and their interaction becomes more complicated. Having returned to Pakistan, Changez is now a professor who has made a name speaking out against the country that pushed him toward success. At this point, the reader becomes less certain about Changez, and may wonder why he has been telling this story, why this man continues to listen, and how the conversation will end as the night comes to a close, and both men go their separate ways.

Overall, Mohsin Hamid’s novel is thought provoking to say the least. Through Changez’s storytelling, the reader experiences the other side of American values and sense of entitlement. These thoughts are grounded in a real personal struggle to discover what is fundamental.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist questions differences, the struggle for common ground, anger and enduring resentment. Though the words and opinions Hamid presents can be jarring, and the ending to this novel leaves us with a sense of divide, his motives are admirable: “We need to stop being so confused by the fear we are fed; A shared humanity should unite us with people we are encouraged to think of as our enemies.”

Amy D'Aureli is a Writing Major with a Spanish Minor. Amy is an editor for Loyola College's fiction and poetry literary magazine, The Garland, and is also part of the Advanced Poetry Workshop, in which she is publishing a chapbook of poems entitled, "My New York."