My Son the Fanatic (novella)

infobox Book |
name = My Son the Fanatic
title_orig =
translator =


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author = Hanif Kureishi
illustrator =
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country = United Kingdom
language = English
series =
genre = Novella
publisher = Faber and Faber
release_date = 1999
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Paperback)
pages =
isbn = ISBN 0-571-19234-2

"My Son the Fanatic", is a novella written by Hanif Kureishi. It was also made into a movie (see My Son the Fanatic (film)).

Plot summary

The narrative deals with the problems of Parvez, who has migrated from Pakistan to Britain and his son Ali. Parvez worries about his son drifting off course because Ali’s behavior has changed significantly. Early in the story, Parvez is afraid of discussing his worries with his friends because his son has always been a kind of showpiece son. Eventually, Parvez breaks his silence and tells them how his son has changed, hoping to receive some advice from his friends. After having a short conversation, they come to the conclusion that his son might be addicted to drugs and that he sells his properties to earn money to buy drugs. After this meeting, Parvez goes to his taxi to drive home. But in his car he finds Bettina, a prostitute, who drives with Parvez very often and has become a confidante of Parvez. Since Parvez has defended Bettina from a client who had attacked her, they take care of each other. Parvez tells Bettina what he has observed and that he and his friends assume that his son does all these strange things because he is drug addicted. Bettina instructs Parvez on how he has to observe his son to find out if there is anything physically wrong with him. However, after a few days of observations Parvez decides that his son appears totally healthy. The only physical change Parvez can observe is that Ali is growing a beard now. And apart from that it turns out that his son does not sell his things. He just gives them away for free.

Only now Parvez notices that Ali prays five times a day, although he had not been brought up religious. Parvez decides to invite his son for dinner to have a conversation with him about the happenings during the last days. Initially, Ali refuses this invitation, but later he goes out for dinner with his father. Parvez drinks a lot during this meeting and they start to argue. Ali criticizes his father’s way of life because in his opinion his father is "too implicated in Western civilization" (Kureishi 2001: 157) and breaks the Koran’s rules by drinking alcohol and eating pork. Ali explains to his father that he is going to give up his studies because from his point of view, “Western Education cultivates an anti-religious attitude.” (Kureishi 2001: ) After this evening Parvez feels as if he had lost his son and wants to tell him to leave the house. But Bettina can change his mind so that Parvez will try to understand what is going on in his son’s mind. During the next days Parvez tries to explain cautiously to his son what his ideas and attitudes towards life are. He even lets himself grow a beard to please Ali. But Ali still holds his father in contempt his for not sticking on the rules of the Koran. A few days later while Parvez is driving in his taxi with Bettina he sees his son walking down the sidewalk. Parvez asks Ali to come in and drive with them. In the car, Bettina starts to have a conversation with Ali, but as she tries to explain to Ali that his father loves him very much, Ali becomes angry and offends Bettina. Afterwards he wants to escape from the car, but Bettina preempts him. She leaves the car when it is still moving and runs away. Back at home Parvez drinks a lot of alcohol because he is very furious at his son. After a while he walks into Ali’s room and attacks his son who does not show any kind of reaction to protect or defend himself.As Parvez stops hitting him, Ali asks his father: "Who is the fanatic now?"

= The Novella in Comparison to the Film =

The film differs significantly from the novella. The order of events, scenes, is changed and new events and characters are added. Even the name Ali is changed to Farid. The short story sets in London, the southeast of England and the film sets in Bradford which lays in Northengland. The new characters in the film are “the maulvi from Lahore, Fizzie and Herr Schitz.” (Moore- Gilbert 2001: 164)

Another important invention of the film is the change of the relationship between Parvez and Bettina. In the short story it is mentioned that Bettina and Parvez take “care for each other” (Kureishi 1997: 151) since Parvez has protected Bettina of a very violent client. We do not learn that in the film. It is also mentioned in the text that Parvez can “talk to her about things he’d never be able to discuss with his own wife”. This shows that they are good friends and trust each other, but in the text there is no evidence that the prostitute Bettina and the taxi- driver Parvez have a love affair as in the film. In the film this “sexual dimension” (Moore- Gilbert 2001: 164) is developed to show how Farid leads his father into despair.

At home Parvez does not have a partner to communicate with. His wife, Minoo who is rarely mentioned and not named in the short story, is always doing the household and not leading a serious conversation with her husband. The main thing they talk about is Parvez job. Therefore Minoo is a more complex figure in the film than in the text. She develops from the loving mother which she is in the opening scene to the “servant in her own home after the deric’s arrival, even being required to eat apart from her husband”. (Moore- Gilbert 2001: 166)

The character of Schitz, the German entrepreneur who is present nearly the whole film is one of the most complex characters of those added in the film. Schitz can be seen as a “comparison with Parvez, reminding the audience that there are different kinds of economic migrants, whose reception by the ‘host’ society varies according to the migrants national origin, class and ethnic identity.” (Moore- Gilbert 2001: 165) Schitz represents industrial renewal and revolution. He comes from Germany, which has just been united again, to Great Britain and “represents the growing influence on Britain of Europe, in which a newly united Germany is the economic dynamo and, as such, a potentially oppressive force.” (Moore- Gilbert 2001: 166) With reference to business Schitz is a stereotype of the successful white businessman with a lot of money. He likes to spend his money and to look down on people of other social classes as he does in the case of Parvez. In the film Schitz jokes about Parvez when Parvez tells him that he always wanted to be in the cricket team of the company he worked for when he came to England. Later in the Night Club Schitz also laughs at Parvez because of his Pakistani accent. This accent is a feature the film uses to create cultural differences. The father who leads a western life speaks English with a Pakistani accent whereas his son who is a fundamentalist speaks Standard English.

You may also see Mr. Schitz as the representation of the contrast to Farid’s world. Mr. Schitz embodies everything that Farid hates about the Western World which he disgusts since the nearly beginning of the story. Although Farid is in conflict with his father and not with Mr. Schitz and does not even know him, these two characters in the whole context of the story represent the two different ways of life which are in conflict in this story and exclude one another. Farid is the fundamentalist who starts to stick on the Koran and does everything to show that he finds the western world contemptible and has developed a lot of prejudices against the western society such as that they drink too much alcohol, eat pork and are sexually involved, for example. Mr. Schitz as he is shown in the film in his private life, who has just separated from his wife, presents all the prejudices Farid has developed of the western world. He drinks a lot of alcohol, takes drugs and hires prostitutes.

Farid’s, or Ali’s; new attitudes towards the world he has always lived in since his birth lead to a very big conflict between him and his father. This conflict is in the short story and in the film which both start in media represented at the beginning. The short story opens with Parvez sitting in Ali’s room. The narrator who is not part of the story and therefore a heterodiegetic narrator narrates that Parvez is “bewildered” (Kureishi 1997: 147) by the fact that his son is getting tidier. He also explained briefly Ali’s old behavior to give reason for Parvez worries. Then the reader learns that Ali had an “English girlfriend from whom he has parted.” (Kureishi 1997: 147) The film opens with a scene that shows Farid’s family at a visit at the Fingerhut’s house. Parvez is very enthusiastic and already plans his son’s wedding. The short story creates at its opening a very calm atmosphere of a usual father worrying about his son. There cannot be found any hints than the names that they are not a family of British origin. Whereas in the film the audience can from beginning on realize that Parvez’s family is immigrated to Britain. Parvez’s wife is dressed in traditional Pakistani clothes, but does not have her face veiled, Parvez speaks with his Pakistani accent and Minoo and Parvez speak Urdu, their native language, with each other.

At the beginning it seems that Farid is ashamed of his father when he is taking the pictures of the Fingerhuts. But at this part of the story his shame just looks like the usual shame a teenager has when he feels blamed for his parents and not like the kind of disgust that Farid, and Ali, develops throughout the continuing story. The short story says that Parvez and Ali once “were brothers”. (Kureishi 1997: 150) But that is a thing which Parvez tells the reader and the reader does not learn anything about Ali’s view of those things. Therefore the reader gets a very limited view of things. This statement just underlines that Parvez worries about his son who became estranged from his father. This is the way Parvez is presented in the text and the film. Parvez is the loving father who always wants to achieve the best for his son. He always was “aware of the pitfalls that other men’s sons had stumbled to in England.” (Kureishi 2001: 148) He wants to give his son a better life than he once had. That is the reason for him to work “long hours” (Kureishi 2001: 149) and to spend a lot of money on his son’s education. And while Parvez was dreaming of a better life in Britain he did not realize that something is going wrong with his son until he changed. But now he questioned himself if he has made any mistakes.

After a conversation with his friends and with Bettina Parvez worries about his son taking drugs. In the film it is shown how Parvez checks Farid’s temperature. Farid’s reaction shows that he knows what his father is looking for and therefore he stretches out his arm to show his veins. While Parvez keeps his son under surveillance he follows him into the mosque. There Parvez is confronted with the fact that his son is not just becoming religious. He changes to a fundamentalist. A Muslim in the mosque tells Parvez that those boys, the group of boys which includes his own son, are not welcomed in the mosque because they always want to change the people’s opinion.

Farid is presented in a more radical in the film than in the short story. In the short story Ali shows his disgust for his father in the conversation they have when they are out for dinner. Ali offends his father, but does not do anything more. He just wants to state his view of things. Whereas at the nearly end of the film Farid and his friends attack the prostitutes violently. They through Molotov cocktails into the prostitutes house and Farid spits at Bettina. This violence maybe seen as an influence the maulvi took on them because he is added in the film and does not exist in the short story where an attack like that does not happen. The maulvi takes very much influence on Farid and helps him to become more fanatic. He even gives introductions, as Farid tells Parvez in Fizzie’s restaurant, when they are having dinner. Farid trusts more the maulvi ideals of life than his fathers.

Further reading

*Bart Moore-Gilbert: "Hanif Kureishi" (Contemporary World Writers) (Manchester University Press, 2001).