The Reluctant Fundamentalist

SLE was reading "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" instead of "Seasons of Migration to the North."  Since I enjoyed "Seasons of Migration" a lot when I read it over the summer in Cambodia, I thought I might enjoy the book that filled its slot.

It was interesting.  The book is an extended monologue, where the narrator and protagonist tells his life's story to a stranger.  It's similar to Camus' "The Fall" in that sense.  It was also similarly jarring. 

The protagonist goes to Princeton and the financial industry, but he is uncomfortable with how the financial industry furthers racist and colonial interests.  He is also in love with a woman who can't love him because she is trapped in the past.  His fundamentalism is manifest by becoming a professor who teaches the tools of finance and nonviolent political organizing to students in his home country. 

The author's explanation of the book (ie, http://www.harcourtbooks.com/Reluctant_Fundamentalist/interview.asp) is that it hopes to inspire empathy and cross cultural dialog.  I can understand that.  I really don't get the ending, though.