From: The Globe and Mail (April 14, 2007)
9/11 Changez everything
By PATRICK LOHIER
Although it's become a cliché to say so, a number of things did change following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Most obvious is that tens of thousands, and potentially hundreds of thousands, of people have died violently over 5 1/2 years of warfare as a direct result of 9/11 and the U.S. response to it.
Less obvious to us at this time is the toll on the human psyche. How has all this played out for people, for individuals who reacted to the events of that day with horror, ambivalence or joy? Novels are uniquely suited to depict the complexities of mind and motivation behind events such as 9/11: John Updike, Jonathan Safran Foer, Ian McEwan and a few others have recently set their sights on the personal perspective in a post-9/11 world. We should now add to this growing list of ambitious writers the lesser-known, but very talented Mohsin Hamid, who with his second novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, has set out to depict the deeply personal and human toll of that day on a young Pakistani man aptly named Changez.
The frame of the novel is set in the present, when Changez, now in his late twenties, engages a stranger, an American sitting at a sidewalk restaurant in Lahore, Pakistan, with the simple words, "Excuse me, sir, but may I be of assistance?" He notes that the man looks American, joins him at his table, then launches into a 184-page monologue (the full length of the book) on events in his life just before, during and after the Sept. 11 attacks. Even the unnamed American's words and actions are related only through Changez's words, so the reader is immersed in Changez's perspective and the American serves as proxy for the reader.
It's a very delicate conceit, one that could blow over like a house of cards if it weren't for Hamid's deft touch. He also builds suspense by gradually adding to the scene, of two men sitting at a table, attention-grabbing props like a satellite telephone and a concealed gun. ("When you sit in that fashion, sir," Changez says, "with your arm curved around the back of the empty chair beside you, a bulge manifests itself through the lightweight fabric of your suit.") Nothing is as it seems.
We discover through his own words that Changez is the scion of a once wealthy and prosperous Lahore-Pakistani family, fallen over recent generations to hard times. Confronted with the loss of family fortune and estate, Changez notes, "One has two choices: pretend all is well or work hard to restore things to what they were. I chose both."
The story within the frame is Changez's account of his years in the United States, of how he went to Princeton on a scholarship and there, through a mix of wicked smarts, immense personal charm and a touch of the exotic, found academic and social success. On graduation, he achieved two of his primary goals: recruitment by an exclusive New York-based valuation firm called Underwood Samson, and inclusion in a circle as rich and entitled as any from the pages of F. Scott Fitzgerald. On a post-graduation trip to Greece with some of that crowd, he met Erica, a beautiful aspiring novelist from a wealthy New York family.
Changez returned to New York to start his job at Underwood Samson, and his relationship with Erica bloomed. The only obstacle between them was her persistent heartache over the death of her first love, a heartache that Changez is confident he can heal, since his competition is dead, after all.
Then 9/11 happened. While on an assignment for Underwood Samson in the Philippines, Changez saw the attacks unfold on his hotel-room television, and watched the World Trade Center collapse. To the nameless American, he says, "And then I smiled. Yes, as despicable as it may sound, my initial reaction was to be remarkably pleased."
And therein lies the title of the book. For although Changez admires American power and wealth and privilege, and has long aspired to a place in it, at heart he feels a cloying contempt for the imperialism, materialism and efficiency-as-religion that underlies U.S. power. By that point, perhaps the only thing he loves about it is Erica, whom he adores.
I won't give much else away. Suffice to say that in his beautifully accomplished little volume, Hamid -- Pakistan-born and Princeton-educated -- succeeds at illustrating not only that Changez changes, but that much else changes too, following 9/11. The United States that welcomed him with open arms, and recognized and rewarded his innate talents, seems to spurn him post-9/11. He undergoes a dramatic transformation, hastened by ambivalence, paranoia and the growing complexity of his relationship with tragically haunted Erica.
Hamid is sophisticated with symbols, and the relationship between Changez and Erica is especially affecting, in great part because of what it says about missed opportunities, misunderstanding and the growing rift between Judeo-Christian West and Muslim Middle East.
Outcast, disillusioned, feeling suspect in a beard that he can't -- won't -- bring himself to shave, Changez makes the fateful decision that brings him a few years later to the framing place of the novel: Pakistan, Lahore, dusk, and a table facing a man with a hidden gun. |