My dinner with Changez: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Not a great book but a thoughtful and provocative book that I think would be a good choice for our book group, or any book group - Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a sad and straightforward account, from Pakistani's point of view, of how America coalesced into a jingoist and xenophobic myopia in the days and months after the World Trade Center attacks. The narrator and protagonist, Changez, recounts, over dinner, to an American traveler he encounters and oddly befriends, a listener who serves as a stand-in for us, the readers, who never speaks - the entire novel is a Changez's monologue, his life story (reminds of My Diner with Andre, to a degree) : Princeton-educated, career in finance and consulting, difficult and strange relation with girlfriend Princeton classmate Erica who is fixated on her first love dead from cancer and is clearly mentally ill and severely depressed, his feelings of failure and emptiness in that relationship, and then the attacks, and he begins to feel watched and hated, his business life falls apart, the relationship ends, he goes back to Pakistan, bearded and bitter, and becomes the fundamentalist of the title. Though smart and insightful, the book is not particularly surprising - there's no great conflict or single dramatic turning point, and it's never made completely clear what it means for this young man to e a fundamentalist: is he a terrorist? a jihadist? The ending is ambiguous to say the least (won't give it away) and in itself would be topic for discussion, as would the question of whether Changez's conversion is healthful or hateful, and whether it is typical or unique. In other words, does his story help us understand why many around the world despise the U.S.? Oddly, the very specificity of the novel, that is, its unique qualities and its strengths, make the story particular rather than representative or universal: for example, Changez's relationship with the deeply troubled Erica is highly atypical, so insofar as that relationship was a major factor in his devolution and reture to Lahore a changed man, then, no, the story seems to be less about a cultural phenomenon and more the unique and perhaps tragic story of this one similarly troubled man; however, the story also speak to the loneliness and isolation of many outsiders striving to "fit in" and full of self-doubt and insecurity.