Ally Headings - The Reluctant Fundamentalist

            The book and the movie, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, both showed concepts of fundamentalism in very different ways. I felt that I could see the movie comment on fundamentalism more than the book. To me, the two most visible examples in the movie were, of course Underwood Samson, whose guiding principle was “focus on the fundamentals,” and al-Qaeda’s desire to spread the word of the Quran. But I also thought that the part in the book where Erica’s father spoke to Changez about Pakistan could have been referring to al-Qaeda’s fundamentalism. He says, “But the elite has raped that place well and good, right? And fundamentalism. You guys have got some serious problems with fundamentalism” (Hamid 55).

            General differences I found between the book and the movie mainly concerned Erica and Changez. In the book, Erica was a writer. In the film, she was a photographer. She also seemed to have less of an emotional problem in the film than in the book. I was especially disappointed by that difference. I wished very much that Nair had portrayed that in the movie. The only touch of Erica’s emotional breakdown over Chris is in the scene where she wakes Changez up with her crying. I was disappointed in the movie over this difference because in the book, I absolutely loved the way Hamid described Changez’s ability to sense Erica’s brokenness and sadness. For instance on page 52 Hamid writes, “I met her eyes, and for the first time I perceived that there was something broken behind them, like a tiny crack in a diamond that becomes visible only when viewed through a magnifying lens; normally it is hidden by the brilliance of the stone.” He also writes on page 87, “she was struggling against a current that pulled her within herself, and her smile contained the fear that she might slip into her own depths, where she would be trapped, unable to breathe.” I completely admire Hamid’s writing style. Sentences like these are so poetic and so beautiful, and I can't imagine why such an important part of Changez and Erica’s relationship would not be conveyed onto film. As you can probably tell, I adored the way this book was written.

            Another part of the book that I loved was the lack of communication by the American with whom Changez shared his story. The way Hamid used the narrator to communicate, as if we (the readers) were sitting across from him at that table in Pakistan, allowed for so much imagination. The American in the movie was a completely different person than what I had imagined him to be from the book.
            It was curious, both in the movie and the book, the way Changez admitted to feeling a sense of pleasure at the fall of the World Trade Towers. I know the book is fiction, but I wondered if this was somehow a reflection of Mohsin Hamid’s feelings of the attacks. It stirred me when Changez referred to himself as a New Yorker upon his arrival in the Philippines, but seemed to have no remorse upon seeing the terrorist attack. It was like the violence in Pakistan that he had known somehow made acts of terror less effective in his life, although he couldn’t seem to be able to empathize with the mourning Americans during this tragedy. And today as I write this, it is the 12^th anniversary of those very attacks. What a time to be discussing this topic.