The American Century: Literature since 1945 803American,” when he sees the destruction of the Twin Towers on the news. And,
“despicable as it may sound,” he confesses, “my initial reaction was to be remarkably
pleased” – not by the terrible loss of life but by the belief that “someone had so
visibly brought America to her knees.” So begins a turnaround that is as ambivalent
as everything else in this book. Changes now take place in Changez’s life, but they are
as ambiguous and unclear as anything else in the novel – and not only because
Changez is our sole source of information. Even as Changez describes it, his
repudiation of America is curiously frictionless. It has next to no religious element;
it involves mainly growing a beard, giving up his consultancy job, and returning to
Pakistan; and it is marked by considerable doses of ex post facto wisdom. Changez
still seems oddly in love with the culture of America, constantly referring to or
invoking it, even while he rages against it. And even his repudiation of America and
return to Pakistan is fraught with potential irony. Is this a genuine conversion, or is
it the superior opportunism of the highly trained appraiser of failing companies
who thinks he knows where the real power is now headed?
Even the title of the novel reflects the slipperiness of this version of the colonial
encounter. From that title, and from the increasing tension between Changez and the
unnamed American, the expectation is that Changez is moving toward a revelation
that, “reluctant” though he might have been to do so, he has embraced Islamic
fundamentalism and is even orchestrating some act of violence against his
interlocutor. But the ending leaves that open. An unnamed “waiter” is certainly
“closing in” when Changez and the American stop to say goodbye, perhaps to seize,
maim, or kill the American, perhaps with the assistance of Changez. But perhaps not.
Meanwhile, the American seems to be reaching into his jacket for something with “a
glint of metal.” Is it a gun or, as Changez tries to reassure himself in the last words of
the narrative, a “holder of ... business cards?” Is this the prelude to an act of violence
or to an exchange of names and intimacies? Is there a terrorist here and, if so, is it
Changez or the American who is the agent of terror? For that matter, is it, as the
reader has possibly assumed, Changez who is, or rather who has become, the
fundamentalist? Or is it the American, a recruit perhaps in the fundamentalist project
of a war on terror? Or is it neither? Is it rather a global capitalism that seeks to
dominate the world with its own form of economic fundamentalism – a project
signaled by the injunction Underwood Sampson,Changez’s former employers, had
(we are told) chosen for their motto, “Focus on the fundamentals?” There are no
certain answers to these questions, since what we are presented with, constantly, is
limited, equivocal evidence, partial disclosures and evidential traces – all of them
occurring, verbally, in a “half-conversation” and, spatially, in a liminal territory. That
territory is further problematized by a kind of geographical and historical layering.
When Changez comments on the American flags that suddenly proliferate in
New York City following 9/11, for instance, he wonders “what manner of host would
sally forth from so grand a castle,” so mapping the triumphalist militarism of the
United States over the ruined glory of the Mughal Empire. The terrain Changez
traverses, in New York, Lahore, Manila, and elsewhere, is sponge-like, a place where
different cultures do not so much engage with as absorb each other. This is a peculiarlyGGray_c05.indd 803ray_c 05 .indd 803 8 8/1/2011 7:31:46 PM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 31 : 46 PM