Recently in my ASTU class we’ve read Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist  and a critical article by Peter Morey that breaks down the book’s the form and function. Of all the articles we’ve read this year I’d have to say Morey’s and Butler’s chapter are a tie for me (not surprisingly they deal with similar ideas). When I first read Hamid’s book my initial complaint was that I hated the dramatic monologue set up, it reminded me too much of the first scene in Aladdin where a mysterious Arabian man draws in its child audience with a one sided conversation loaded with innuendos. It felt so unauthentic to me, almost as if Hamid was trying to sound like the white washed Arabic narrator of Disney’s classic and only middle eastern based movie. After reading “The Rules of the Game Have Changed”: Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist and post-9/11 Fiction I do feel I have to reconsider my initial criticism because the author breaks down the form of the novel in a way that makes every choice, including the dramatic monologue style, feel calculated and intentional. In this post I want to extend a bit more on the Butlerian critique to the novel since I think Morey’s analysis on how affective the form of dramatic monologue is complete but his application of Butler is less developed.

Before Morey even dropped the “us vs them” give away term I picked up on his Butlerian style critique. First when he impacts out the effectiveness of the form in disrupting Western perspectives to 9/11 narrative he states, “Culture (and cultural difference) is then constructed as cause (and legitimation) of violence, whether that be the fury of the terrorists or the calculated precision attacks of ‘smart’ warfare, unmanned drones and so on”(Morey 136). Essentially he explains that we become capable of “smart warfare” when we are able to distance ourselves from warfare and make that “us vs them” dichotomy that then legitimizes even the most extreme action. The author makes a poignant argument that the form of the novel disrupts the Western tendency  to justify all acts of brutality in times of war by constructing these ideas of culture and cultural difference. He flat out says, “ I wish to argue for Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist as an example of a sort of deterritorialization of literature which forces readers to think about what lies behind the totalizing categories of East and West, ‘Them’ and ‘Us’ and so on – those categories continuously insisted upon in ‘war on terror’”(Morey 138). What I think makes Hamid so successful and forcing the reader to see their own dichotomies and ideas of East and West is that he constantly makes you wonder if what you’re assuming is happening is because of your own presuppositions. In the final passage it’s left up to the reader to decide if Changez is a terrorist or not and whether the whole book has been a build up to an assignation by an American insurgent. Although the decision is for the reader to make you can’t help but ask yourself why you chose the ending you do because up until the end Hamid is making you aware of what ideas you already bring to the book. In an interview clip Hamid blatantly points our that what the reader brings to the book can decide even what genre you place the book in, “Many people have said it feels like a thriller. The reason for that is we are already afraid.” As an audience member and as a politically active person I’ve never felt more called out. By leaving a lot of the story up to construction by the reader Hamid creates a mirror for the reader to see their own ideas about the East and the West, terrorist or Arab, dangerous or unfamiliar.

The mirror that’s created by Hamid’s form is an affective tool for forcing the reader to check their own presuppositions that they bring to the novel. Hamid’s novel offers an opportunity for the Western reader to partially shape a story about a dichotomizing issue and then critically analyze their own creation. The novel tells the reader more about themselves and forces that critical eye to an issue that is often all to easy to separate from. I think Hamid works to break down the “us vs them” dichotomy in every reader by asking the reader what decisions they made subconsciously during the reading.

Thanks for reading all year and I hope you all have a great long weekend!!!