Hi everyone!
Now that summer is for all intents and purposes over, I always look forward to the new Fall season in books, film, theatre, television, and the arts. One of the most anticipated film releases of the year, is acclaimed director Mira Nair's film adaptation of Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid's bestselling and Man Booker Prize nominated novel "The Reluctant Fundamentalist." I'd been meaning to read this work for several years and when I heard the film was releasing this fall I jumped on it over the long Labor Day weekend.
"The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is written as a first-person narrative in the voice of a young Pakistani man named Changez who is relating his story of how he's returned to his hometown of Lahore after a brilliant academic career at Princeton and a potentially promising career working as a financial analyst at a top Manhattan business evaluation firm in the months just before and after 9/11. He loves New York and everything that American capitalism stands for. Changez feels like he's king of the world. Not only is he earning a huge salary and is considered one of the best employees at his firm only months out of college, he is dating a beautiful Upper East Side girl named Erica and finds himself falling in love with her.
But, of course, Changez's all-American success story hits a snag. Changez confesses to feeling a sense of understated but smug satisfaction when he watches the planes fly into the World Trade Center. He is disturbed by this response to the tragedy and seeks to cover it up, but as prejudices against him among his co-workers come to light in the wake of 9/11 and with the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and an escalation of tension between his home country Pakistan and India, Changez's perceptions of his adopted country begin to change in slow but dramatic ways. This runs parallel with a steady deterioration in Erica's mental health. She has never gotten over the death from cancer of her best friend and former boyfriend. And as her relationship with Changez heats up and the world as they'd known it prior to 9/11 becomes utterly foreign to them, Erica retreats deeper and deeper into herself to a point of no return.
"The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is one of those novels that grips you from the first paragraph. Changez proves to be a compelling character and the fact that the novel is written entirely from his perspective gives an immediacy to the seeming halcyon days prior to the attacks of September 11 2001. What makes it all the more fascinating is that Changez clearly represents the "other" and effectively portrays the fear and paranoia that gripped the Muslim and South Asian population here in the United States after that fateful day. Changez's voice alternates between gung-ho youthful idealism and a gnawing slightly off-kilter bitterness that haunts the reader with its sinister undertones. This is a fast read and one that can easily be devoured in one or two sittings.
But it's not without its problems, and these problems don't really come to light until you've finished the book and begin to reflect upon it. I realize that the character of Erica is meant to symbolize the decline and fall of American civilization post-9/11, and while she sort of works as a literary device, it's kind of a stretch. Because we only see Erica through the lens of Changez's experiences, she remains a bit of a cipher. The reader never really gets to know her or find out why exactly she has this, well, fatal attraction for her dead boyfriend. We just see her shut down as Changez grapples with the reasons for her increasing isolation from him. This is not to say that the reader isn't moved by her or by what ultimately happens to her, it's just that she is never closer than arms'-length.
Changez's transformation into the "reluctant fundamentalist" is also problematic, though for a different reason. We're dazzled by his language and the pace at which he tells his story, but the transition itself--while understandable--is undercut by a sense that he is leading the person to whom he's telling his story (an American we assume sitting with Changez in an outdoor restaurant in Lahore) to a certain doom. This sense of foreboding comes to the forefront in the novel's final pages, and the ending itself is deliberately kept ambiguous. In fact, I had to reread the final paragraph at least three times to figure out what exactly takes place, and I'm still not entirely certain.
Despite these flaws, however, "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is definitely worth reading. The film premiered last week at the Venice Film Festival to decidedly mixed reviews. I am excited by the casting of British-Pakistani actor/rapper Riz Ahmed as Changez. Mr. Ahmed was terrific in Michael Winterbottom's recent film "Trishna" and I'm sure he'll be equally as good as Changez. I am somewhat surprised that Ms. Nair cast Kate Hudson--not exactly known for her dramatic acting--in the role of Erica though this could be a breakthrough performance for Ms. Hudson. Mira Nair is a brilliant film director ("Monsoon Wedding," "The Namesake," etc) with a wonderful visual style that leaps off the screen with energy and color. I look forward to seeing what she can do with Mr. Hamid's problematic but ultimately engaging and topical novel.
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