Hello readers!

It’s been awhile since I’ve written so let me catch you up on what we’ve been focusing on in my ASTU class. Last week, we read the short story “Redeployment” by Richard Klay, which is a story about a war veteran returning home and the difficulties he faces with adjusting to the constant changes in environment. We then moved into a novel this week called “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” by Mohsin Hamid. This novel tells the story of a young Pakistani man named Changez who falls in love with an American women and his abandonment form the United States. Although there were a few other topics discussed in this week’s blogs, I’m going to focus on those that talked about Klay and Hamid’s stories.

Let’s start with Martin’s blog. He focuses on the aspects of the short story that show how hard it is for a soldier to return home from war. Marin uses the example of when Sgt. Price returns home to his wife and says, “I moved in and kissed her. I figured that was what I was supposed to do” (7). I really like the example used here because it shows that something so ordinary and routine like kissing your spouse is extremely difficult when coming from an environment filled with violence and war. This brings me to Therese’s blog, which brings up the idea that going home might be just as hard as going to war. Although many believe that war veterans who come home must feel relieved and safe, Therese brings up a good point when she says “but being in the army doesn’t actually leave them”. Moving onto Joseph’s blog, he focuses mainly on the meaning of the dogs in Klay’s story. When Sgt. Price kills his own dog instead of taking him to the vet to be put down, it shows that he is taking responsibility for his dog’s death. This connects back to how difficult it is to return home, because it seems as though it is impossible to escape from what is routine when at war.

I’m now going to move on and look at some of the blogs that discussed Hamid’s novel “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”. Starting with Melissa’s blog, she discusses the novel as a romance. She talks about Erika representing America because they are both “stuck in their original form” and “not willing to change”. This connects to the idea that Erika is unable to fall in love with Changez because she is unable to live in the present and can’t move on from her deceased boyfriend. This novel can be seen as portraying many different genres, not only romance. Moving onto Baris’ blog, he brings up the idea that what we take from the novel depends on what lens we read the book from. I think he Baris brings up a really good point here; the reason why he doesn’t see the book as being anti-American is because he can relate to how Changez is feeling. I might interpret the book differently than others because of different backgrounds, which I find really interesting.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone’s blogs this week and good luck with the rest of your semester!

-Kate