Recently in my ASTU class we\u2019ve read\u00a0Hamid\u2019s The Reluctant Fundamentalist\u00a0 <\/i>and a critical article by Peter Morey that breaks down the book\u2019s the form and function. Of all the articles we\u2019ve read this year I\u2019d have to say Morey\u2019s and Butler\u2019s chapter are a tie for me (not surprisingly they deal with similar ideas). When I first read Hamid\u2019s book my initial complaint was that I hated the dramatic monologue set up, it reminded me too much of the first scene in Aladdin<\/i> 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\u2019s classic and only middle eastern based movie. After reading \u201cThe Rules of the Game Have Changed\u201d: Mohsin Hamid\u2019s The Reluctant Fundamentalist and post-9\/11 Fiction <\/i>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\u2019s analysis on how affective the form of dramatic monologue is complete but his application of Butler is less developed.<\/p>\n
Before Morey even dropped the \u201cus vs them\u201d 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, \u201cCulture (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 \u2018smart\u2019 warfare, unmanned drones and so on\u201d(Morey 136). Essentially he explains that we become capable of \u201csmart warfare\u201d when we are able to distance ourselves from warfare and make that \u201cus vs them\u201d 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\u00a0 to justify all acts of brutality in times of war by constructing these ideas of culture and cultural difference. He flat out says, \u201c I wish to argue for Mohsin Hamid\u2019s The Reluctant Fundamentalist <\/i>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, \u2018Them\u2019 and \u2018Us\u2019 and so on – those categories continuously insisted upon in \u2018war on terror\u2019\u201d(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\u2019re assuming is happening is because of your own presuppositions. In the final passage it\u2019s 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\u2019t 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, \u201cMany people have said it feels like a thriller. The reason for that is we are already afraid.\u201d As an audience member and as a politically active person I\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n
The mirror that\u2019s 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\u2019s 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 \u201cus vs them\u201d dichotomy in every reader by asking the reader what decisions they made subconsciously during the reading.<\/p>\n
Thanks for reading all year and I hope you all have a great long weekend!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recently in my ASTU class we\u2019ve read\u00a0Hamid\u2019s The Reluctant Fundamentalist\u00a0 and a critical article by Peter Morey that breaks down the book\u2019s the form and function. Of all the articles we\u2019ve read this year I\u2019d have to say Morey\u2019s and Butler\u2019s chapter are a tie for me (not surprisingly they deal with similar ideas). When I first read Hamid\u2019s 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…read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36259,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","et-no-image","et-bg-layout-dark","et-white-bg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jacdesantis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jacdesantis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jacdesantis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jacdesantis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jacdesantis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jacdesantis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jacdesantis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jacdesantis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jacdesantis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jacdesantis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}