Principal’s Man Booker Initiative: Fundamental success?
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When Principal Louise Richardson removed official endorsement of the Kate Kennedy club shortly after her instalment early this year, we got the idea that she was going to be making her own rules. It was in the same innovative vein that our new Lady Principal instigated a programme to provide all entrant students, henceforth, with a copy of a novel recently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. During an interview on the topic she claimed to have founded the initiative claiming it would be fun for students coming from so many varied backgrounds to have at least one thing in common; the book they have read. In turn she hopes this common interest will enable students to engage intellectually with one another, as it is in the goal of learning that attendance at St Andrews unites us.
This year’s choice was Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a short novel narrated in dramatic monologue that depicts an evening spent in Old Anarkali, Pakistan, between a young native man and a visiting American. In his address in the Buchanan Theatre on the 8th October, Mr Hamid declared the novel to be a fiction of ‘belonging, yet not belonging’; an exploration of cultural identity, as the protagonist Changez details his love and subsequent disenchantment with America during his residence there over the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, one almost wonders if the novel worked as a kind of therapy for the author, as it seems to closely mirror his own experiences as both he and the protagonist attend Princeton, and in turn work for a multibillion dollar company. When asked about this in the question and answer session on the 8th October, the author conceded that he worked out his own cultural identity issues in a way by writing the novel, trying to make sense of having one identity whilst living in another country and its identity. The draw of the novel, however, is the fact that it seems to appeal so widely, despite the seemingly narrow subject matter of a Pakistani boy living in America. Indeed, the very fact that Buchanan Theatre practically burst due to full capacity speaks volumes of the novel’s popularity. Mohsin told a humorous anecdote of meeting a pierced and dreadlocked hippy at a signing in Washington, who ferverently claimed ‘This book is about me!’. He explained how he too attended an Ivy league school and worked in big business, before he, like Changez rejected a focus solely on the fundamentals. Similarly Principal Richardson commented that she chose the novel for the fact that the main character was the same age as the students who would read of him, and Mohsin also told of how it captured the story of moving into the real world and trying to build a career that would relate to St Andrews students.
The novel is a unique and fresh voice in literature: a rare insight to the 9/11 tragedy and America from an Eastern perspective. Mohsin’s biggest message in his talk was the notion of empathy, as the novel involves the reader becoming the recipient of Chanqez’s dialogue, forcing us to engage directly in his story. In turn, therefore, we must consider the nature of our own identity and prejudices, with the novel acting as a mirror by which to better look at ourselves.
This year’s choice was Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a short novel narrated in dramatic monologue that depicts an evening spent in Old Anarkali, Pakistan, between a young native man and a visiting American. In his address in the Buchanan Theatre on the 8th October, Mr Hamid declared the novel to be a fiction of ‘belonging, yet not belonging’; an exploration of cultural identity, as the protagonist Changez details his love and subsequent disenchantment with America during his residence there over the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, one almost wonders if the novel worked as a kind of therapy for the author, as it seems to closely mirror his own experiences as both he and the protagonist attend Princeton, and in turn work for a multibillion dollar company. When asked about this in the question and answer session on the 8th October, the author conceded that he worked out his own cultural identity issues in a way by writing the novel, trying to make sense of having one identity whilst living in another country and its identity. The draw of the novel, however, is the fact that it seems to appeal so widely, despite the seemingly narrow subject matter of a Pakistani boy living in America. Indeed, the very fact that Buchanan Theatre practically burst due to full capacity speaks volumes of the novel’s popularity. Mohsin told a humorous anecdote of meeting a pierced and dreadlocked hippy at a signing in Washington, who ferverently claimed ‘This book is about me!’. He explained how he too attended an Ivy league school and worked in big business, before he, like Changez rejected a focus solely on the fundamentals. Similarly Principal Richardson commented that she chose the novel for the fact that the main character was the same age as the students who would read of him, and Mohsin also told of how it captured the story of moving into the real world and trying to build a career that would relate to St Andrews students.
The novel is a unique and fresh voice in literature: a rare insight to the 9/11 tragedy and America from an Eastern perspective. Mohsin’s biggest message in his talk was the notion of empathy, as the novel involves the reader becoming the recipient of Chanqez’s dialogue, forcing us to engage directly in his story. In turn, therefore, we must consider the nature of our own identity and prejudices, with the novel acting as a mirror by which to better look at ourselves.