..out of the dark

Title: The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Author: Moshin Hamid
Publisher: Penguin

Follows a pakistani immigrant living in New York, ahead of the september 11th attacks. And his subsequent slowpoke towards discovering his feelings about his identity, allegiances, and his more fundamental sense of justice.

Seems the form of the novel is interesting, though. Since we have a narrative of the kind that is utterly introspective, even though it encapsulates the entirety of life and beyond, etc (see the last post for an example of the same). And as much as I, and evidently the author, hates these kinds of isolated narratives that lock out the entirety of existence in favour of the more engaging and responsive world inside. One that illustrates a convincing case in this way is probably a necessary one to accept the existence of.

Because with this, Moshin Hamid breaks the american monopoly of the steel- framed narrative that twists in on itself. And so suggests how it's necessary to look beyond them for a solution to the problems they describe. While it's explored to what degree it's possible to shape your own fate inside such a narrative, and for what reasons one might choose them. Even if they are not the easy way, or the most beneficial.