There’s nothing that people like better than a love story. Unfortunately I can’t cite that because it’s a sweeping generalization that I pulled out of nowhere. However, it can be argued that the romantic storyline is an ingredient thrown into many popular books and movies to create a wider appreciation. To provide context as to why I’m talking about this, my university english class has been studying Mohsin Hamid’s “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”. It’s the first work we’ve looked at so far with a sustained romantic storyline, an anomaly which piqued my interest. The novel is written as a dramatic monologue from the point of view of Changez, who tells his story to a mysterious American who never has a line. Changez is a Pakistani man who once studied, lived and worked in the US, gaining money and prestige by consorting with elites and working for a top, ruthless finance company. After the attacks on 9/11, there is a growing gap driven between Changez and America as political tensions arise. Deposited onto this backdrop is his love story with Erica, a fragile American girl. As the novel progresses, the reader becomes increasingly uneasy about the situation that Changez and the american are in, not knowing whether Changez is luring him into a place of vulnerability or if the American is a man sent to kill the Pakastani political activist that Changez has turned into. At end of the book, the reader is left still unsure as to what happens, but is left with the very real, very alive aftertaste of Changez’s compelling life story. There is a feeling produced that the telling of this story is only superficially genial; it is in fact of a greater importance, and that is reflected in the growing tension; the reader can not assign this tension to any particular reason, and is thrown into the sorty time and time again. The magnetism of Changez’s story stems from the various passions he describes; notably his love for Erica, his attraction to both Pakistan and America; and his zeal for his intense work. I would like to focus on the love storyline. Throughout the novel, Changez actively brings doubt to the authenticity of what he’s telling; saying that the intention and gist are what matter about a story. So did the love story between him and Erica even happen? Was it purely to entrap the American in his tale, to provide an image of an American man, in love with an American woman? After all, the novel is written in such a way that the american is the audience, not the reader. Relatable and dramatic stories of love won and lost would be familiar to the american; it would be a story he would stay for, which seems to be the thrust of Changez’s goal as he speaks. One reading of the book can see the ending as Changez having lured the American away to be attacked by their waiter, and if this is the case, then the entire novel is based on Changez playing with the American. His love storyline might not just have been constructed to make the American listen, but to subtly mock his country, to bitterly display the impossible divides between America and Pakistan. The way that Erica will need him and take him around to all the finest events, but fall away from him as soon as adversity strikes reflects Changez’s relationship with America. If Changez intends to kill or, at least, have the American killed, then these will be the last words that the American would hear; I find it convincing that Changez would need to, in some veiled way, have the victory of throwing the ways that America failed him back in the American’s face. So, it is possible that Changez himself invents Erica as an allegory to present o the American. Another way of looking at it is seeing the allegorical side to the characters as the doing solely of Hamid. In this case, the allegory would be for the consumption of the reader rather than the American. The romance storyline opens up the experience of loss of future and loss of love through the more accessible experience of a relationship. It adds context, a brutal understanding, for the popular audience. The romance story line rubs salt in the wound that opens up between Changez and America, making the popular reader see it as all the more tragic. It is almost as if Erica is a physical embodiment, an outlet, for all the frustration, the unattainability, the superiority, the closed-ness, and the pathology that Changez sees in America.
I do believe this is nearly, of not the, last blog post for this course. It’s been a pleasure exploring you blogasphere- both the reading and the writing!
Thanks for the outlet,
Nicola
