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Redux -- The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Nov. 5th, 2007 12:56 pmMy main thought upon finishing this book: What a disappointment!
The narrative hook, the beautiful prose...wasted on one big whine from a disenchanted twenty-something. The narrator's tale was bitter and boring, ultimately. Frustrated in love, isolated by his own actions and (admittedly) by the xenophobia that most of America felt after 9/11, what starts as an interesting allegory for the dangers of American empire and hegemony descends into a self-indulgent rant. Instead of feeling sympathy for Changez, all I could see was a self-loathing hypocrite who took advantage of all the opportunites that were offered to him, then reviled those who offered without ever seeing that he himself had contributed to and become a part of what he despised.
The only things that saved this book from itself are the beautiful language used to tell the tale and its mysterious ending.
C+ verging on B-.
.
The narrative hook, the beautiful prose...wasted on one big whine from a disenchanted twenty-something. The narrator's tale was bitter and boring, ultimately. Frustrated in love, isolated by his own actions and (admittedly) by the xenophobia that most of America felt after 9/11, what starts as an interesting allegory for the dangers of American empire and hegemony descends into a self-indulgent rant. Instead of feeling sympathy for Changez, all I could see was a self-loathing hypocrite who took advantage of all the opportunites that were offered to him, then reviled those who offered without ever seeing that he himself had contributed to and become a part of what he despised.
The only things that saved this book from itself are the beautiful language used to tell the tale and its mysterious ending.
C+ verging on B-.
.
