Diggs Welden’s Reviews > The Reluctant Fundamentalist > Status Update

I think an over all theme that keeps coming up throughout this book is the comparison between underwood samson and the intensidy of the military. I think this comes up on page 112 when Wainwright tells Changez to “Focus on the fundamentals. This was Underwood Samson’s guiding principle, drilled into us since our first day at work.”

On page 78, Changez says “errands…otherwise…carried out by our chauffeur our Toyota Corolla was loving the maintained but getting on its years therefore prone…to overheating.” This is a really interesting detail because to me it seems odd for a family to have a chauffeur driving an old, worn-down Toyota Corolla, but to Changez this is normal, which shows how different the culture is between Lahore and NYC.

On the top of page 52, when Changez explains how he looked into Erica’s eyes and saw “that there was something broken behind them, like a tiny crack in a diamond.” I think this hints that Erica is a great person with a great soul, but since she lost Chris, she has had what Changez calls a ‘tiny crack’. I am looking forward to seeing how her ‘crack’ affects the rest of the book.

On page 38, when Changez explains how the whole team at Underwood Sampson were all graduates of elite universities, and he adds the detail, “and not one of us was either short or overweight.” This shows that he is starting to realize he is no longer the only seemingly perfect straight-A student and that there are other people just as good as him, if not better, and this is competition he is going to have to overcome.

After reading the first 20 pages of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, I noticed that we never hear what the American Tourist says. This makes me curious about why the author chose this approach, as it gives the impression that the main character, Changez, is narrating his story. So, what is the purpose of writing it as a conversation with the mysterious American man?