The Reluctant Fundamentalist

This is an interesting fiction book presented as one uninterrupted monologue where a Pakistani man explains to a CIA agent suspecting him of terrorism connections why there are actual good reasons to dislike America, but that doesn’t really mean you are a terrorist.

Started reading The Reluctant Fundamentalist, after a passage from it in a writing book caught my interest. A different passage that made me laugh:

But that is neither here nor there. I was telling you about the moment when I was forced to stare. We were lying on the beach, and many of the European women nearby were, as usual, sunbathing topless—a practice I wholeheartedly supported, but which the women among us Princetonians, unfortunately, had thus far failed to embrace—when I noticed Erica was untying the straps of her bikini. And then, as I watched, only an arm’s length away, she bared her breasts to the sun. A moment later—no, you are right: I am being dishonest; it was more than a moment—she turned her head to the side and saw me staring at her. A number of possible alternatives presented themselves: I could suddenly avert my eyes, thereby proving not only that I had been staring but that I was uncomfortable with her nudity; I could, after a brief pause, casually move my gaze away, as though the sight of her breasts had been the most natural thing in the world; I could keep staring, honestly communicating in this way my admiration for what she had revealed; or I could, through well-timed literary allusion, draw her attention to the fact that there was a passage in Mr. Palomar that captured perfectly my dilemma. But I did none of these things. Instead, I blushed and said, “Hello.” She smiled—with uncharacteristic shyness, it seemed to me—and replied, “Hi.” I nodded, tried to think of something else to say, failed, and said, “Hello,” again. As soon as I had done this, I wanted to disappear; I knew I sounded unbelievably foolish. She started to laugh, her small breasts bouncing, and said, “I’m going for a swim.” But then, as she walked away, she half-turned and added, “You want to come?”

Lacking a candle, I turned on my television and set it to mute, thereby bathing the room in a dim, flickering light.

Juan-Bautista wore a hat and carried a walking stick, and he ambled at a pace so slow that it would likely have been illegal for him to cross at an intersection in New York.

Read the book in one sitting. Pretty good! I’m not sure I’ve ever before enjoyed a book written under a constraint of that level — the book is made of a single monologue, but what a gripping monologue it is, did not feel gimmicky in the least.