Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a story within a story. One is the clever telling of the other.

At a café in Pakistan, a Pakistani man tells his story to an American man. The men are strangers. We learn about the Pakistani man through his narrative. The American remains a mystery man throughout. In paragraphs between parts of the Pakistani man’s story are hints about the American man, the purpose of his encounter with the Pakistani man, and perhaps even the Pakistani man’s purpose in telling his story.

In this short novel, the Pakistani man tells of coming to America to attend Princeton and then work for high wages at a New York company. He falls in love with an American who’s in love with a dead person. But she’s rich and gets him into all the right places. He’s living the high life.

Then, surprise, he decides on 9/11 that he’s disillusioned with America. He now sees America as that big, bad, obnoxiously rich and power-hungry nation that waves its flag as if it can’t get over itself and is stuck in some black-and-white movie. He smiles at the sight of the destruction of the Twin Towers.

I wouldn’t have bothered reading more. But I had read so many reviews of The Reluctant Fundamentalist that were favorable and praised its suspense. I figured something must be about to happen that would justify all this, and it was such a short book I stuck with it.

The Pakistani man continues to describe his disillusionment with America and his doomed love affair. He goes on to explain why he is back in Pakistan and what he is doing there. I guess the reviewers referred to the mystery American when they mentioned suspense.

The Pakistani man speaks of the necessity of knowing history but obviously knows little history himself. He complains more than once about the awful Americans invading Afghanistan for no reason and of Pakistan helping America but the Americans refusing to take their side when they go to war with India. He, of course, doesn't mention the Taliban in Afghanistan and their promise of another 9/11. He also forgets (I don't know how since he lived there) that Pakistan and India have been going at it with each other for years and that this war with India was a frequent occurrence.

So the Pakistani man’s story is told, and he and the American man are still at the café at the end of the day. And then comes the ambiguous end. My guess is one of two possibilities.

I can’t recommend this book.

interesting read - short and intense; creatively examining the human aspect of criss-crossing cultural, political and religious boundaries, good at stimulating book club discussion!

Didn\'t really hit for me. The narration should keep you interested to the end though. The conversation format was somewhat interesting.

I guess I didn\'t like the main character but I do wonder how representative he is of others

Addendum:

I am upgrading my review after my book club meeting...good discussion,

There are always two sides to every story. This book takes us along the life of Changez, a Pakistaní, living and thriving in the USA and what happens to his life once 9/11 occurs. It's difficult to put oneself in other's shoes but perhaps his story will help understand what happened in the lives of many Muslims after 9/11.

Most of our reading group finished the book and we agreed that it was easy to read. We had a discussion on the meaning of the word Fundamentalist in the context of this book and thought that life was making Changez, the narrator, into something he did not want to be. He changed his attitude and his way of life during the story, going from a clean cut type of ‘All American’ boy, to growing a beard and appearing more Eastern.

Changez tells us that when he heard of the Twin Towers incident he smiled and from that time he seemed to change. It was thought that he might have realised his roots were calling to him and that the love of his own country was stronger than the love of America.
At the beginning Changez said that his bearing gave the stranger away as being American, although he was not really described, only what he was not. So he was stereotyped as an American. The American stranger was described by Changez as nervous, so possibly he was known by Changez. It seemed unlikely that such a nervous man would sit for so long in a street side coffee bar, with a man he had never met before.
Changez tells his story of his life in America to the nervous stranger. He is a brilliant student and goes onto make his career in the world of finance. He is in love with a girl called Erica, but she still loves her old boyfriend who died of cancer. Although she seemed fond of Changez, she could never really forget this boy. He is appreciated by his boss, Jim, who promotes him to work on various offshore assignments. It was suggested in our group that there may have been a hint of a gay relationship in the background, although this was not mentioned specifically by the author.
After September 11th attacks Changez finds that there is a sense of suspicion in the air and his treatment in public becomes different. He returns to New York without completing his final task for the company. He loses his job and with no reason for staying on in America, he moves back to Lahore. There he becomes a professor of finance and a mentor to various groups of students and from there he becomes involved in demonstrations together with the students.
At the end of the book we are still not sure of the future for any of the characters, why the waiter is so attentive, or if any of them is really a ‘bad guy’.