I thought long and hard about what to include in my first post on my new blog. I could have written about the baseball steroid scandal, about the Democrat’s debate in Iowa just a few weeks before the caucuses. I could have written about farm subsidies or global warming or Pat Robertson or google or ethics in Congress or Holiday shopping. But honestly, I don’t feel like writing about any of those things today, though I will get to them later.
Today I’m going to write about a book I read called The Reluctant Fundamentalistby Mohsin Hamid. I plan on using this book in my Eng 111 classroom because I thought it was so good. But other people besides freshman students will enjoy this book that is un-put-down-able.
The Reluctant Fundamentalistis about a young Pakistani man who comes to America for four years to study at Princeton. While he is here he is involved in a distorted love triangle and experiences strange American customs. He is at the top of his class and earns a prestigious position at a firm in New York City. But after 9/11 everything changes for him.
The book is written in first person, with the protagonist, Changez, speaking to an American tourist who is visiting Lahore. Because the American doesn’t speak a word during Changez’s story, the audience, that is, the reader, by extension becomes the American tourist. And the result is astounding. The end of the tale is startling. Hamid does not tie up any of the loose ends, which is something an American reader will expect. Instead, he leaves the book with the reader (and the American tourist) wondering what is going to happen. You’ll have to read the book to see what I mean.
Because of the format in which it is written, the book is hard to put down and is described as a thriller by some critics. But what is most interesting about the book is what will shock the reader as he or she reads Changez’s story. Changez expresses some sympathy with the terrorists who attacked the Twin Towers and the American tourist finds himself aghast at Changez’s feelings. The reader will feel the same. But because the reader knows Changez’s story, it is difficult to condemn him completely. The book gives wonderful insight into what it is like for people from the Middle East in our country.
With the discrimination (and sometimes hatred) our society often practices against people from the Middle East, this book is incredibly important to read today. Though this is just one book in a long string of others about post 9/11, this one is definitely worth picking up.
