Recommend me a book to compare with...

[lattywatty]

The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Wait!- if you haven't read it don't go yet. Here are the main themes/events in the book:

Individuals in Society
Both American and Muslim reactions to 9/11
Religion (Islam, mainly)
Immigrants & Expatriates

And, to an extent:
Loss
Prejudice

I'm looking for a post-1900 book that I could compare (for a piece of AS level coursework) with this novel. Preferably fairly short, but that doesn’t really matter, that’s just me being lazy :P

Thanks in advance!

P.S. As a side note, I hugely recommend this book!!

Edit:

I'm not quite sure I've given the right themes here. Another one I suppose is the desire to do something uncivilised, in a sense. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde would be a great book to compare but is unfortunately outside of my timeframe. It's just I've read my post back and feel I haven't quite captured the whole idea of the novel and really can't without going into great detail.

Oh well, if you've read it or get a general idea from all those themes then please post your ideas.

:D

[Dirtbag]

I haven't read The Reluctant Fundamentalist but I'll recommend Brave New World based off of some of the themes you mentioned.

Notably, the themes of individuals in society, the desire to do uncivilised things and prejudice. It's from the 30s and is fairly short.

I hope that helps.

[mal4mac]

If you can go pre-1900 I would recommend "the Cossacks" by Tolstoy. It's short, and it concerns the Russian (& Cossack) opposition to the Chechen (Muslim) rebels of the day. The translations are post-1900 so you migh squeeze it in that way.

"Individuals in society" seems rather broad, aren't all novels about that?

What do you mean by "desire to do uncivilised things"? In "the Cossacks" the hero admires the Cossack way of life, and desires to live their uncivilized (i.e. simple, positive) life rather than a civilized (Russian, decadent) life.

Or do you mean "uncivilised" in a negative sense? In the sense that suicide bombers might be called uncivilized?

[lattywatty]

Yes, I mean "uncivilised" in a negative sense, as you said.

I understand that "individuals in society" applies to all books. It's hard to explain. I guess I mean more the society's impact on individuals. Yeah, I mean that :P

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll look into them. Please recommend more though if you can think of any :D

[mal4mac]

I understand that "individuals in society" applies to all books. It's hard to explain. I guess I mean more the society's impact on individuals. Yeah, I mean that

So you mean where societies impact on the individual is made explicit? That's a good thing to consider, so many modern novels just ignore it, or take it as given. Tolstoy certainly looks at this impact, even in a short novel like "the Cossacks". The hero is running away from Russian society, which is contrasted with Cossack society and its positive impact on the hero