The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007)
by Mohsin Hamid
Penguin Books, 209pp
Mohsin Hamid’s 2007 international bestseller, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2007, tells the story of Changez (the Urdu for Genghis), a possible terrorist meeting a possible CIA agent in Lahore. “Excuse me, sir, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard: I am a lover of America.” So begins Changez’s monologue that charts the rise and fall of this man, from Princeton University, to employment in a prestigious firm, his love for a fellow New Yorker named Erica, to the increasing suspicion he feels after the destruction of the World Trade Centre, and the escalating conflict in his home country of Pakistan, which he watches from across the Atlantic, powerless to help.
Of all the novels published about 9/11, and the rise of fundamentalism in Muslim countries, Hamid has produced one of the best. John Updike – usually the master of character creation –in The Terrorist (2006) or Don DeLillo in The Falling Man (2007) – usually the master of American Diaspora but failing here – have all attempted to cover the momentous events of that September day. Where Hamid succeeds is that though 9/11 is a central moment of this novel, unwittingly altering Changez’s destiny, it is not a driving force of the novel, the character is not involved with it. When the Trade Center falls he is halfway around the world, in Manila, watching it on television like everyone else. Hamid has not constructed a novel about 9/11, but a novel about a person affected by the events, and that is ultimately more powerful.
The collapse of the World Trade Center provides The Reluctant Fundamentalist’s most shocking moment.
“I turned on the television and saw what at first I took to be a film. But as I continued to watch, I realized that it was not fiction but news. I stared as one – and then the other – of the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center collapsed. And then I smiled. Yes, despicable as it may sound, my initial reaction was to be remarkably pleased.” (P.83)
What distinguishes The Reluctant Fundamentalist is its monologue form. Changez is relating his tale to an American who may or may not be CIA and Changez may or may not be a terrorist. Hamid plays with this form, having fun letting the audience second guess what actions may next occur. The duality that this text invokes is mirrored through the possibly radicalisation Changez undergoes and the loss of mind that befalls Erica. At the end of this superbly powerful narrative every character is left hanging off metaphorical and literal cliffs (or having gone over them) that one is reminded that this is simply not a story of a rise and fall, but is concerned with events that happened after the fall, for falling is only but the beginning of one story.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist is already published in Penguin Books, and I am certainly that in twenty years time this novella will be included in the Penguin Modern Classics range. Hamid’s novel is that good.
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