Have been away for quite a while… had a lot going on and had a lot to settle! But happilly enough, all has fallen into place and I am back!
Just finished reading Mohsin Hamid’s Reluctant Fundamentalist, which is his second novel after Moth Smoke (a book which I loved). It was a short but interesting read, and whereas I wouldn’t put it into the instantly memorable category, it was powerful enough in certain areas. For one, it painted a sad yet true picture of the confusion and the chaos that have seperated the East and the West following 9-11. What happened divided the world; and terror took over. The truth brings to light our own mortality; we live in a world that could fall apart any minute… and we could be blown away like little worthless insects.
Ironically, the main character of the novella works in a valuation firm in NY, which encourages its employees to always ‘concentrate on the fundamentals’. How ironic, when that is exactly what our own fundamentalists do. And one thing that many forget… its not only our part of the world that breeds extermism or fundamentalism… the Ku Klux Klan is but one example of what can happen elsewhere.
In all honesty though, its a scary picture… and a picture that we can all fight to change. We need to stamp out the hatred and bring in acceptance. Even tolerance seeps of aarogance.
There’s a line from some famous American playwright whose name I forget. “Ideology seperates us, but dreams and pain bring us together.” It is exactly this, that Hamid’s book describes as not happening. Rather than sharing the pain of humanity, both us and the West choose to wallow in our own self indulgent pain.
Back to the book, it lacked a powerful ending, but still a good read.
But the most brilliant book that I’ve read by far recently is Khalid Hosseini’s magnificient Kite Runner, which is highly recommended.
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