The reluctant fundamentalist - a book of thinking

 The reluctant fundamentalist is a “bildungsroman” novel written by Mohsin Hamid.  Moshin’s book is a novel of formation, education and coming – of- age, thus I would say that the book is written in a “bildungsroman” genre and the reason to why I would say that is because the book focuses on the psychological and moral growth of Changez. We get to see how he went from being in a secretly poor family in Pakistan to a highly educated Pakistani who worked as a financial analyst for a prestigious firm in New York, and how all these changes affected him and his life in America.
 

Changez, as I said, is a boy from Pakistan who lives in America and attends Princeton University on a financial aid, whiles working at Samson Underwood.  After a trip to Greece Changez finds himself in a disastrous relationship with a woman.  Along with the failing affair, the attack of 9/11 starts to impact Changez life in America. With his life in America slowly falling apart, Changez decided to return to Pakistan.

 “Excuse me, sir, but may I be of assistance” is the first sentence you will read when you open the book.  This sentence is the start of a long monologue between Changez and an American, whom Changez had met in Lahore, and had invited for tea.  Changez starts to tell the American about the story of his life in the months just before and after the attacks. 

At first I was not interested in reading this book, however, when I started reading I came to notice that I was really enjoying this book. I was not sure if it was the weird one-way monologue Mohsin used, or the fact that he brought up very relevant themes not unlike from what we may see in the real world, but there was something about this book that made me continue reading it.   Some of the things could recognize can be things such as the grief of the loss of a dear one, and the strong hate for a certain group of people after a terrible action afflicted them, after my comprehension I would say that the book actual want’s to point that out – how people always want to have a certain something to blame after something terrible happens.  

The book made me happy at first, but as I got more into the book and read about how Changez was treated by the Country whom he loved so dearly, I got mad and upset, because as I said, this is something that is happening in real life. The only thing I didn’t like about this book was the ending, however, I could´ve expected it since Mohsin has a writing of his own.  He decided to leave this book with an open ending, and that made me angry at first. I´m not a very big lover of the open ending concept, I like to know what happens so that I can sleep at night without thinking about what migh´ve happened and so on.

 

This book is suitable for everyone who loves to read a good thriller. This book takes us on a long rollercoaster of thinking and feeling.  I could probably recommend people from the age 16 and over to read the book because it can be difficult to understand at times, or not difficult to understand, but the writing method makes this book a little hard to understand at first.     

First impression - The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Last week i started reading " the reluctant Fundamentalist" by Mohsin Hamid.  The book is about a man in Lahore, Pakistan, who one night stops at a café and invites a stranger to sit with him. As the night goes the man named Changez tells the american about his life and how his four years and so in America was.  As you continue reading you will learn a lot more about Changez´s life in America including his love life.

Link

I chose to read this book because I thought that i may be influenced by the book on a different level, than the books i usually read. The plot in this book, made me want to read it even more, because it had all the things i look for in a good book.  The author has written about love and current world problems. I like to read a book that is relevant to my life, or not my life, but the life of other real human beings. Although the other books are also very relevant, this book stood out to me.


My first impression of this book, after reading the first chapter, is that the author has a very formal way of writing.  The main character is a very open man, and maybe that is an reflection of how the author is in real life.  He wasn't afraid to approach a stanger and to just start to tell about his life story.  Changez, the main character, said something on the first page that goes like this " Ah, i see i have alarmed you.Do not be frightened by my beard : I am a lover of America. "  Which  gave me the impression that later in the movie he will have some problems with the fact that he is from Pakistan. I´m looking forward to continuing reading this book and discussing it with fellow students who are reading the same book.

Biographies - Amy Tan, Andrea Levy and Moshin Hamid

This period in English we are going to focus on literature. We are given three authors on whom we can chose a book from and read. To get to know the authors better, Gro ( Our teacher) decided that we first had to find some facts about the authors and then write a short paragraph about the impressions we got from the authors.  So underneath you can find my impressions i got from watching some videos from the authors - which i also will post so that if you want, you can also watch them!

Amy Tan
My impression of Amy Tan, after watching the video, was that she maybe uses a lot of what her mother thought her in her stories. She actually said it her self, that her mom said a lot of stuff that other mothers would´ve thought was to brutal and that made her think more creatively while she wrote her book. She was´t afraid to talk about what her mother said, and she told the honest truth about moving to another country and being able to start over again.  She also focuses on women leaving other countries and how they adapt and so on.
After watching the video, i wanted to research a little bit about her book, The Joy Luck Club, to see if she maybe used a lot of what her mother tried to teach her in her younger years, and she did. The book is about four different  Chinese families who moves to America.  If i were to read this book i would probably read a lot about how strict the families are and the difference methods there is to raising a child.

Link to video

Andrea Levy
Andrea was a lot more emotional then the two other authors. So I can probably think that her book has a lot of emotional content and the hard and mental part of moving to another country. She was so grateful that the book got the attention it did because she thought that no one would care about how a Jamaican girl would have it.  Her book is about four main characters: Hortense, Queen, Gilbert and Bernard. Its plot is set in 1948 and focuses on Jamaican immigrants, who, escaping economic move to England.

Link to video

Moshin Hamid Moshin gave me the impression that he wasn't scared to leave out any details in his book even though some people from his culture was offended by the way he wrote the The reluctant fundamentalist which is the book we are going to focus on.  By having two cultures he got to the capability to compare the two cultures into a book and he used that advantage.  Something he didn't mention in this video but i was it in another, i can leave a link below, was that the book is about different culture love and the terror attack that happened in the US - 9/11.  He used a lot of his experiences when making this book.  Being a Pakistani man during the attack gave him a intel on how it is to me judged by the looks. His book as i said is about love and terror attack. It´s about a boy who moved from Pakistan to America, where he met a girl, who after a while became mentally ill, so after that and the terror attack of the twin towers he decided to leave and go back to Pakistan. 

Link to video

Something all of these authors have in common is that all of them have two different cultures that are influencing their writing.  They all write about the difficulties  about moving to another country and they take on three complete different subjects which makes the books different from each other.