‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ – Mohsin Hamid
Hamid’s tightly controlled narrative of Changez’s search for identity raises many questions. The use of the first person narration gives us a voice that seems trustworthy. This confessional style, like ‘Catcher in the Rye’, immediately puts us on side with Changez; we are drawn into his version of events. Is he the character the title refers to? It isn’t clear; ambiguity permeates the whole text. It is clear, however, that he did not want to evolve his view of America and spoil the dream – this is his reluctance. Underwood Samson (obviously representing the US/corporate America in the name) both inspires him to ‘focus on the fundamentals’ and to question what is fundamental. Spoiler alert: they diverge in terms of how they see fundamentals, so both could be the fundamentalist.
Changez’s disappointment with the mythology of America versus the reality comes very early. Although Changez is ‘a lover of America’, he seems to be more like the internet dater, suddenly caught off guard by the discrepancies in description. ‘When I first arrived, I looked around me at the Gothic buildings… made through acid treatment and ingenious stonemasonry to look older.’ Princeton should have been ‘a dream come true’ but within a paragraph he admits that he had been ‘overly generous’ in his assessment. This starts of the gradual disillusion – literally losing the false idea – that America is an empire moving forward. Being stuck in the past is a theme within the novel.
Erica (from Am – erica) personifies this entrenchment. Erica epitomises access gained by the ‘east coast elite’ to cultural experiences and status. But it doesn’t save her from self destruction. Erica lives in the past, being in love with Chris (Christian – an ideal, and a type with ‘Old World appeal’ who paints a type of miniature that would not be out of place in a museum) who has died. She can’t move past his death and live in the present. For Changez, the frustration with Erica becomes extreme enough for him to impersonate Chris, and so he becomes the east penetrating the west by a type of benevolent deceit. Changez cannot get clear communication from Erica, and what is said is sporadic and in her control. This lack of communication, of honesty, dooms the emergent relationship. It does not matter how much he has admired her as she is unable to accept the present and leave the past. Changez tries to change to please Erica, but just as the lack of mutual understanding and acceptance of values is affecting the politics today, she cannot accept him as he is, or the shadow self he adopts for her.
It is interesting to me that Hamid effectively suggests that the Christian ideals that the American founding fathers had, have died, through the dead character of Chris. It is hard to imagine how a country that Emily Lazarus said would accept ‘…your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.’
would reach its current position. But rather than turn away from the ‘storied pomp’ of the more established liberal democracies, America chased after this pomp in poor imitation. The depiction of the weathered buildings of Princeton just one example of this. Could modern America not cope with the fundamentals that their forebears lived by? It isn’t just Changez who struggles to accept his identity, but America is also in an identity crisis, not sure if they want to look back in an isolationist way (‘Make America Great Again’/’Make America Moral Again’) or be world players looking ahead.
Changez changes, as indeed his name suggests, after meeting Juan Baputista (John the Baptist, who was the first public acknowledgement of Jesus’ ministry and sonship). This baptism, which traditionally means a publicly acknowledged change of direction, points him back to the east and his role in demystifying America to others, as well as a resurgence of his identity as a Muslim man. The imagery of the janissaries is particularly pertinent as an inversion because these were Christian boys captured and trained by Muslim forces. Their devotion to the ‘adopted empire’ meant the sacrifice of their roots. They lost their fundamentals.
As the novel ends, Changez claims he had not so much left America behind, as ‘returned to Pakistan.’ Yet part of America as Erica is in him/with him and has changed him forever. He advocates a disengagement with America by Pakistan, but is himself unable to fully disengage. His reluctance to lose the dream and the love sound sadness even with the ambiguous end.
