I went through Mohsin Hamid's new thriller in three hours flat. Since I'm also incredibly slow, it may take you ten minutes.The Reluctant Fundamentalist arrived last month with fanfare. The prose is clear and solid in this slim volume, and Hamid keeps things moving with breezy assurance. In that ancient 'Ancient Mariner' fashion, a man accosts a lone American in a Lahore cafe. So begins the monologue of Changez, led from Pakistan to New York in search of the Big Dream, and led back home after 9/11.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist seems to have crawled unwillingly late into the loop of news-tickers and op-ed pages. I wasn't refreshed by a new idea or argument. Changez's tone is ambiguously parodic at points, though the unveiling of the American is handled with Hitchcockian patience. Kiran Desai found the book 'relevant' [of course]. She seems to have forgotten her own assertion from a few months back, a dozen words more provocative than all of Hamid's novel. Memo to Mohsin: 'I think the date 9/11 has been given artificial emphasis in the West'. Read, reluctantly.
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