Book Review: The Reluctant Fundamentalist - A Novel By Mohsin Hamid

In no book in my recent memory, have I recalled a book that has so much in so little as this one does. At less than 200 pages, Mohsin Hamid creates a story with as much character, heart, and wit as longer novels. Along with an engaging and unique writing style, creates a truly memorable experience for the reader.

The entire story is told from a cafe in Lahore, Pakistan,from a second person narrative. Our protagonist, Changez meets an American tourist and discusses his entire story.Changez, a Pakistani who immigrates to America at the age of 18 to attend Princeton and subsequently moves on to a high paying job to work for a New York evaluation firm leading up to 9/11.

And that is where the story begins,taking us through his job, his relationship with the much trouble Erica, and how the recent political happenings drastically change his life.

The characters are well designed but the center piece of the show is Changez,we really get inside his head and his story is quite believable. This is an attribute to the author as he made a ivy league grad with a envious starting salary, great looks and personality, really come off as sincere, but also with the many problems that end up around him, we feel a bonding with him, which great writers achieve with their characters.

The writing is engaging, you feel Changez is having a conversation with you which adds to the connection. However you would never confuse his talking in this book with a real life conversation, as due to the restrictions of the narrative mode,he must say everything for everyone essentially, so it could come off as feeling a bit gimmicky.

The book wishes to defeat stereotypes about Muslims as it is plainly stated in the book. But it does not, as some of you may be thinking, turn America completely against Changez, quite the contrary, Changez after 9/11 and other experiences, changes his view about America, its patriotism and its foreign policy, ultimately leading to a very different life for him.

In conclusion, you would be hard pressed to find such an intriguing and emotionally enticing book as this in such a short fashion as this one. A great story for any book reader.

Top Five Books Everyone wants to have read, but no one wants to read.

Yes my title is a paraphrase of the famous Mark Twain quote:

“A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read."

Of course there are many classics that are very enjoyable, however the books in this list are unlikely to be considered one of them:

The Bible

Ah, the holy book, the book that so much of classic literature is influenced from as well as billions of people. Aside from the religious context, how many really just want to read the Bible? Either for enjoyment or historical information, very little, a very long and rather boring book to read for todays standards. But if you must, I recommend the King James Version.

Shakespeare plays

Many plays from Shakespeare have continued to shape plays and story telling for centuries, but the bard has more recently is being looked on with disdain and contempt mostly from education and that keeps people from really reading and enjoying the works, as it is usually associated with academia . and the use of early modern English usually keep people away, so most people think that people who read Shakespeare are "scholarly" and "intellectual."

Ulysses - James Joyce

The great James Joyce masterpiece ( or so we hear) popularized the narrative mode of "stream of consciousness" which can be insightful, however, is to most people less than thrilling.


Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

One of the most important philosophical novels of our time, influenced many people in political as well as philosophical thought. But is also one of the longest books ever created at 1368 pages. For most political science junkies this is required reading; for the average guy: check the cliff notes.


Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

You cannot have a list like this without including Charles Dickens, the amazing author, the one who everyone has heard of, whose works are so beloved by everyone! Well, thats not quite the case, although an excellent writer, he has a distinct and difficult writing style that is hard to read especially in Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities.

Conclusion:

There is a very good reason while these books and many others have this type of persona, I have listed plenty. But these are the ones people tend to think of when they think of the "classics." Our change of culture, language and technology have resulted these changes, with so many current books out there that are easier to digest, people tend to forget the books of years past, and read for ease than for the understanding of past literature.

Alternative Reads

A new genre has recently caught my attention: Alternate History

What is it you may ask? Well it is a bit more fictional than historical fiction, which takes a real historical setting and makes a story in it. Alternate History on the other hand, invents new history and goes off the what if's of the past, present and future.

It varies quite a bit from the not so far off possibilities of : What if the south won the civil war? What if Japan overtook Hawaii after pearl harbor?

To the more original: What if Islam took over America? What if 99% of America was engulfed by a huge energy field destroying everyone and everything in it?

The latter I was referring to was Without Warning by John Birmingham, the only alt history novel I have currently read, but it peaked my interest in the genre and while I'm not reviewing it, has opened the door to me.

The genre is promising, it requires much creativeness along with a realness needed more so than others. So that aspect intrigues me, the human reaction of the events in these books, the best sellers in this genre to me would be the one with portraying the most likely human reaction.

The former I was referring to was Prayers for the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno while being a interesting premise, fails in aspects of the characters and the overall understanding of this world providing very little description and more about the characters. Which is alright, but you fail to get much connection with them.

I'm wondering what Alternate history novels you have read? I would love to hear about them, as I am always seeking book recommendations.

Here are a few reviews on these books worth mentioning

Without Warning:

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/08/19/imagine-theres-no-country/print

http://booksaremyonlyfriends.blogspot.com/2009/08/way-out-there-alternate-history.html

Prayers for the Assassin:

http://novelsandstories.blogspot.com/2009/07/more-from-my-book-review-archives_7398.html

http://stationwtfo.blogspot.com/2008/12/book-review-prayers-for-assassin.html

The Feeling

I just finished the excellent novel by Khaled Hosseini: A Thousand Splendid Suns and after completion a rush of great joy and happiness came over, almost moving me to tears.

Not every book can do that to me, it has been quite awhile since this phenomenon occurred. And it is the best feeling ever when you read a book and you become filled with...emotion for a lack of a better term.

Of course this depends on the type of book, I would not expect this feeling to come from say, American Psycho.

It strikes me as amazing in this book; where 95% is sad and depressing but that spread out 5% makes it all worthwhile. And you begin to appreciate the small victories in the book, leaving you with a sense of happiness. Now how is that to be? With so much wrong in it the little things that are right make us call it a happy ending.

I Apologize if this seems vague if you have not read it. But you must it is an amazing story and my favorite book of the year. So go buy it, read it. And report back so we can have a discussion on this.

In the meanwhile lets ponder this. What book have given you this euphoria that I have described? I would love to hear about it in the comments section or via email.