Mohsin Hamid's second book 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' simply fizzes with incitement: incitement to Islamic fundamentalism, incitement to hatred of America, incitement to heated debate about the state of politics between East & West and ultimately incitement to turn page after page of this hugely intriguing book! The protagonist, Changez is as far from a "fundamentalist" as one can imagine.

Born in a high-class Pakistani family in Lahore, Changez graduates from Princeton and lands a plum job with Underwood Samson, a company that specialises in appraising ailing businesses that are for sale. Hired for his hunger to "fit in" Changez is sent around the world to size up companies ripe for takeover. By taking up the firm's motto to 'focus on the fundamentals', his career quickly takes off and, despite having been in America for only 4 years, he begins to think of himself as a "New Yorker" first and foremost.

Then comes 9/11 and even as he watches the TV footage of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center, Changez cannot help but smile "Yes, despicable as it may sound, my initial reaction was to be remarkably pleased". He is caught up by the "symbolism of it all, the fact that someone had so visibly brought America to her knees".

Mohsin Hamid's symbolism does not end there. Where Underwood Samson is symbolic of all that it wrong with Corporate America, Changez's relationship with Erica is an allegory of global relationships with America. Erica, shortened presumably from 'Am erica', is psychologically at a loss after her long time lover dies of cancer. Unable to recover from this affair, she has a nervous breakdown and checks herself into a mental health clinic. Changez is unable to save her and this throws him into a state of deep introspection, whence he re-emerges as a fundamentalist. Or so we are led to believe.

The story is retold as a monologue. The book opens at a street café in Lahore with a bearded Changez, recounting his four and a half years in America tourist. Yet, time and gain Changez refers to the tourist's jumpiness, the patch on his suit most likely to secret a weapon and his nervous disposition. Perhaps the tourist isn't a tourist at all, but an agent? Hamid leaves it to the reader's imagination.

This book is replete with symbolism and allegory.

In one tale, Changez explains to the tourist how the janissaries of the Ottoman Empire were captured Christian boys trained to fight against their own people. The reader is meant to think that Changez sees himself as a "modern-day janissary, a servant of the American empire at a time when it was invading a country (Afghanistan) with a kinship to mine". And yet, Changez is not a janissary; the Americans did not capture him, he did not even go to American until adulthood. So whilst this is an interesting allusion, it does not explain how Changez "snapped" and became a fundamentalist.

Was it the high-pressure corporate environment, the failed relationship, the 9/11 atrocity, the subsequent harassment of Muslims, the "war on terror" or does it go even farther back; the growth of American power at a time that the Mughal Empire was terminal decline. It is difficult to pinpoint. Ultimately Changez merely sabotages is own career and returns to teach at a university in Pakistan where is openly advocates "disengagement from your country by mine" and encourages anti-American protests among his students.

Hamid cleverly weaves a sub-plot between the tale Changez's life in America and the situation of Changez and the tourist sitting, apparently innocuously at the café. Is the tourist an "emissary sent to intimidate him or worse", is the café owner Changez's protector? Changez warns the reader not to imagine that all "Pakistanis are potential terrorists, just as we should not imagine that you Americans are all undercover assassins."

The reader is hooked until the very last sentence in this well constructed, tightly knit, beautifully told tale.

ABOUT MOHSIN HAMID

Mohsin Hamid grew up in Lahore, attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School and worked for several years as a management consultant in New York. His first novel 'Moth Smoke' was published in ten languages, won a Betty Trask Award, was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Awards and was a New York Times Notable Book of The Year. His essays and journalism have appeared in Time, 'The New York Times' and the 'Independent' among others. Mohsin Hamid currently lives, works and writes in London.

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