An interesting book, especially the point of view, as the narrator befriends an American CIA agent, seemingly on a mission, and tells the agent his story over tea and dinner, how the narrator grew up in Pakistan, earned a scholarship to Princeton, was recruited by a top flight firm, gained financial success and then, things began to fall apart. The narrator moves leisurel through his life in the US, his recruitment, especially his feelings for Erica, a young women he met on a vacation to Greece, just before he begins working. Their relationship seems more a friendship than a love affair, as she usually ends their dates with a chaste kiss. Interspersed with Erica's story, are explanations made to the American. He is supposedly listening to Changez's story though he(the American) seems uneasy, jumps at any change, and we are wondering what he's doing in Lahore, talking to Changez. Certainly the title worries the reader though the narrator seems solicitous of the American's needs, wanting to show him Pakistani culture though he may just be softening him up before bombing the tea house. At least that's how I felt half way through the novel, when Erica, after they consummate their relationship, falls back into a deep depression, which she has had before.
Changez goes to Chile on a project and has an epiphany, that he has sold out, given in to the enemy, the US. and adopted their methods and beliefs. At about the same time, he discovers Erica is missing from the Mental Hospital, possibly a suicide. He now seems to view the US as the aggressor, who has started wars in numerous Muslim countries over the past thirty years, killing hundreds of thousands of innocents in their war against terrorism. He concludes the US has no right to wage these wars, other than the fact that it has the money to support this wars.
He returns to Lahore, Pakistan, a different person. He takes a part time job as a professor, becomes an intimate of many of his students, especially those who espouse the cause of breaking the ties between Pakistan and the US. When one of his students is arrested, implicated in a plot to kill and American AID director and whisked off to a secret prison, Changez reacts intemperately to a news source by saying: "No country inflicts death so readily upon the inhabitants of other countries , frightens so many people so far away, as America." This gains him international notoriety, making him self conscious, constantly looking over his shoulder. As the narration moves towards its conclusion, the dinner in the Tea House ends, the American and the narrator return to the American's hotel, as hostile individuals seem to be following the two. For the narrator, a terrorist we now assume, his two worlds have fallen apart, his belief in America hegemony for good, the American Dream, and his love for Erica. Neither belief has been consummated, so he turns to action/revenge to fill this void, striking back at that which he cannot have, or does not want. We assume the American, who seems to be drawing a pistol from his pocket at the end, either kills or is killed by Changez...we are never sure. And the novel ends. It will be interesting to see what they have done with this first person narration in the film.
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