The Idiot

Are you looking for a fast-paced entertainment powered by an ensemble of rapidly recognizable characters, who converge across spectacular plot developments to win a decisive victory with everything at stake? If it’s been that sort of a day, then I recommend Roland Emmerich’s 1996 adventure/sci-fi motion picture, “Independence Day”--no judgement. Other times, like if you are considering a 432-page novel, then you might be looking for richness of experience, depth of insight, and vividness of detail, more so than pure plot elements. It’s a satisfying feeling, for me, to finish a long read and feel like you really got to know a character or a certain time and place--and that these are meaningful, unpredictable persons and interactions that grow your world, in proportion to their divergence from the polished creations of a powerful Hollywood production team. But, if you are not that into the world of a given story, then it is even less fun to engross yourself in the deepest dimensions of that experience. So why not check out the excerpt posted on newyorker.com as "Constructed Worlds" and decide for yourself? For me, the main selling points for this book are its engaging detail, literary smarts, and uninterrupted humor, as it memorably recreates the experience of a young woman working out the kind of adult person she will be, during her first year of college. Underlying the story, it is a pretty sophisticated novel technically, in some ways mirroring _In Search of Lost Time_. But, it is way shorter than a Proust volume, and it uses entertaining and witty descriptions to keep the flow running along while accomplishing similar goals to recreate a time and place. (It brings a smile to my face when one of the art professors keeps losing it over the degree of artifice--“Artifice!”--in art.) I think the unpopular aspects of the book might all be different manifestations of a single uncommon (at least in popular heroic literature) feature of the protagonist: at 18 years old she is intelligent and independent but not savvy in life--she doesn’t get the point of many trivial and non-trivial human conventions, but she is determined to do things her own way even as she is figuring out what that way is. So, even though she does not suffer from a neurological condition or an addiction of some sort, she almost never makes the most strategic decision for social positioning or peace of mind; the character (and reader) are definitely not showered by a parade of progressively extravagant victories and rewards based on her winning ways. Instead, the main character is stuck on a lot of intractable questions about linguistics and literature, or semiotics and life itself, and from the start it is pretty unlikely that she will ever have sex with her crush. So for instance, I was really frustrated when she kept creeping on some math class when she was not even a math major because she hoped it would help her understand some math guy’s world and his cryptic emails. But at the same time, have I never done something similar? (It takes some thought because as a manly guy I have censored many acts of awkwardness from my memory.) Overall, I think almost everyone will get something from the book, between the humor and the high general quality of writing. For sure some people will enjoy this book more than others, most obviously those with an interest in literature and linguistics, bildungsromans, or life as a college freshman, and maybe those who live or are interested in the life of a woman in our historical era. But at the most general, I think that to gain the most from this story you will have to find patience and kindness for doubt and uncertainty; to cultivate empathy for ineptitude, charity for self-discovery, and sympathy for the pursuit of digression, exploration, and marginalia. I will now argue conceptually that the more resistant you are to this mindset, the more you share a common mentality with widely-reviled U.S. president Donald Trump, even (especially?) if you yourself hate Trump. (Honestly I hate Trumpism so much that I am comprehensively fearful that I will become like Trump, because in my experience that’s how it always works out with persistent enmity, yuck.) And, I will argue that the more books like this our society can produce, the weaker Trumpism will be--both by cause, in that a world without Trump is one where this kind of book will flourish; and by effect, in that Trumpism and its shameless generalizations will wither away in the face of this kind of patience, kindness, and charity for honest personal stories. First, a natural question: in our catastrophic age of constitutional crisis and military brinkmanship, with important questions of civil liberty and economic policy hanging in the balance, how can it be that the most powerful kind of story for restoring our culture is exemplified by some girl figuring things out in college in the 90s? First of all, consider who else is very likely not only to push this question forward, but also to immediately answer it in an eruption of self-important misinformed bombast ridiculing the characters, the author, girls, college, and figuring things out? Trump; obviously he will never show vulnerability or recount a story about a time when he didn’t understand something or didn’t know what to do, because he has never made a mistake and his life is in fact an uninterrupted parade of winning bigly. Then, why not start a tweet storm, or hack Trump’s web page, or write a bestselling non-fiction book destroying his ideology, or punch a white nationalist on the streets of D.C.--why create a book of fiction with a pink cover that has a rock on it? The way I see it, you may be distinguishable from Trump by your ideas and the informedness of your bluster but when you argue with Trump and his fools, even if you take exactly the opposite position on every single issue, you are participating in the same system of editorialization and prioritization that trivializes marginal experiences and reestablishes the context of our dominant social discourse as one of strict focus on political policy and legal structures, on crisis and violence—no space for the issue of how I as an individual should live my life, but all about the actions of great and terrible leaders who run our world. Like, editors and pundits and bestselling authorities on authoritarianism can warn, “Visa Suspensions a Racially-Motivated Threat to Constitution” in response to an executive order but overall they are legitimizing the overall discourse with artificial gravity by treating it as valid question for rapid reaction and discussion; instead the most natural and appropriate prima facie attitude is really awe and bewilderment, like “Muslim ban WTF,” and then determined resistance. If you stripped this book down to the “important business” according to the editorial boards and the markets and to disengaged spectators demanding casual entertainment (all three are insatiable Trump profiteers and critical enablers) there would be nothing left at all; and that in itself is a repudiation of not just Trumpism but also anti-Trumpism and the horse they rode in on. Some people get mad because the protagonist of this story keeps obsessing and going into detail about her mistakes, and failing to get what she wants. But do you know who is super decisive and can instantly understand any issue at an executive level, even for subjects where the so-called experts called him an ignoramus, and then he gets the right answer every time? I’m not even going to say because ugh you can only complain about a disgusting wretch so much before eventually sounding like the wretch—my own life strategy is to heal myself of wretchedness by processing this book and others like it into my mental world. (If you found some parts slow I am sorry for comparing you to Trump, I think it is only reasonable to have some differences in interest--overall though I am trying to argue that the work to get through the less engaging, or the infuriating parts, is work well spent for one's self and for society.) Relatedly in recently revealed lifelong felony, consider also the commercial master of eliminating the unnecessary and the extraneous from a story, of paring down the digressions and marginalia in order to get straight to the action…Harvey “Scissorhands” Weinstein, who incidentally _always_ has sex with his crush. Self-appointed arbiters of significance have no room in their 140-character stories to discuss mistakes or failures, or things they wanted but couldn’t get; they are repulsed by these stories. And a world of justice is not a world about turning the tables and taking power back from the predators, or ruling the rulers, or policing the police and bullying bullies. It is a world of stories where nobody is mastering anything or turning any tables—people are living their lives with dignity and individual resolution, where we have the strength, humility, and empathy to share long personal stories of bewilderment, doubt, and self-defeat. Overall the protagonist of this story is actually the bigger hero, not Trump or the guy who conquers Trump in a debate or a duel—she doesn’t even want to be the thing that Trump pretends to be. Selin is determined to live her life a certain way even if it kills her, and she does, and it doesn’t even kill her, it just generates a lot of painful or awkward situations that the author wrote up and now we have an opportunity to benefit from this trajectory. In my own experience the greatest heroes are not the ones who go crazy on some special inspired day and win a decisive confrontation with some villains to the acclaim and panting admiration of all--those are the dreams of douches and little boys. The heroes I have known are doggedly persisting in their individual and small-scale goals, in defiance of what institutionally important people prescribe as winning, and it is they who will move the world. In conclusion the author is pioneering a distinctive form of story that admits all sorts of digression and personal starts and stops at the expense of thrilling plot. But it is smartly and vividly observed, and very funny, and in fact it is this kind of extraneous content that is the secret to defeating some of the most hateful things in the world without becoming hateful yourself.

Selin, the idiot of the title, is a bright, confused Harvard first-year who registers her impressions in a continuous first-person narrative. "Idiot," of course, as in Dostoevsky's novel, really (and ironically) means "innocent," which more or less probably describes Selin. As other reviewers have noted, not a lot happens. Selin falls for an elusive young Hungarian mathematician; she goes to classes in language and philosophy (and her snarky comments on them form one of the pleasures of the book); when summer comes she follows Ivan to Hungary as a volunteer English teacher in Hungarian village schools, but he slopes off to Thailand and she comes home, sadder and perhaps a bit wiser. As a retired English teacher with an interest in language and linguistics, I enjoyed Selin's perspective on college life, with its cast of eccentric characters met in and out of the classroom. The humor (and it's a pretty funny book) comes from Selin's take on roommates, friends, family, teachers, and a varied cast of rural Hungarians met during her summer adventure. Whether the book would be equally appealing to readers coming from different backgrounds is a question: it is witty, funny without being hilarious, uneven, maybe too self-indulgent (like its 19-year-old protagonist), and in my opinion longer than it needs to be. Inhabiting Selin's psyche is a bit like living with a teenager - it has its charms, but you find yourself wishing she'd grow up.

I'm not sure what to say about this book. I should have liked it more than I did. My issues with it were more personal preference than the fault of the author. SYNOPSIS The story opens with Selin, a Turkish-American girl, moving into her dorm the fall of her freshman year at Harvard and closes at the end of the summer right before she begins her sophomore year. During that time a lot happens, yet nothing happens. Selin makes some friends and goes to class (some of which is recounted for the reader, making me think her major is terribly boring and Harvard has a lot of freshmen level classes designed for people who will never need to find a real job and /or earn an actual income). Also importantly, Selin develops a crush on a boy who gives gives her some seriously mixed signals. She is so inexperienced with boys that there is no way she could have a relationship, even a semi- relationship, with a boy that would not be the definition of awkward. The book never says why she is so inexperienced; I was not sure if she is just very unattractive or so caught up in academia that she never noticed boys. It's hard to imagine a girl who grew up in America (in a typical suburban setting) and made it all the way through high school only being kissed once. I'm sure it happens that way for some people, but I don't know any of those people. Selin ends up spending the summer teaching English as a volunteer in Hungary and the book closes at the end of her trip when she returns to Boston. WHAT I LOVED This book was beautifully written and captures the angst of a young woman on her own for the first time, trying to figure out what she wants, who she wants to be and what is happening in the world around her. It captures the naivety and awkwardness a first crush. Selins crush felt very authentic and kind of annoying (remember listening to a friend go on and on about a boy she liked with whom she never had the nerve to speak???). Selin simultaneously wanted something to happened, yet was terrified that something would happen. I really liked Selin and Svetlana's relationship. Svetlana added the spunk and interest the book needed. In fact, I think a book about Svetlana would have been more up my alley. I liked how Selin was so smart in so many ways, yet so clueless in other ways. Some of her thoughts and observations were very insightful and others were downright hilarious. During Selin's time in Hungary, her interactions with Rozsa were entertaining. Also the way people there were so open with their opinions was funny. For example; Rozsa was well aware that people found her to be an annoying know it all; she knew this, told Selin about it very matter of factly, yet didn't really care enough to make any changes in her personality which would have made her more fun to be around. WHAT I DIDN'T LOVE Really nothing happened. The story can, more or less, be recounted in about 5 sentences yet it's 424 pages long. The remaining 434 1/2 pages are mostly filled with inconsequential details. About 20 pages of the book were relegated to a direct quotes and summaries of a book Selin was required to read for her Russian class. And it wasn't a particularly interesting story. Several pages were dedicated to detailed descriptions of her language analysis classes. How it that make it into the book?? Zzz... Selin lived inside her head so much it got annoying. She over thought almost everything which made her riddled with indecision and rendered her helpless and unable to act (mostly in relation to her crush but in other ways as well). Also, I have very little patience for people pining over unrequited crushes or wasting time on people who are either unavailable or are inappropriate choices for them. I know, not very generous of me, but seriously??? There are other fish in the sea, get a net and cast it!!! Why do all the characters in 'thinky' books go to schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton etc. Can't there be any intellectual people at schools like Michigan State or SMU? Just saying. The ending was a bit disappointing. I don't want to say to much and spoil it, but I kind of couldn't believe I read the whole darn thing that was how it ended?!? OVERALL Although it wasn't my ideal book, I am willing to be that a lot of people would love it.

"It felt insane to make a plan to do something after I was going to meet with Ivan-like making plans for after my own death." Set in 1995, The Idiot follows Selin as she starts her freshman year at Harvard University. She is young, naive, and an overanalyzer-introverted and socially awkward to her core. Although Selin is passionate about literature and linguistics, she enrolls in random classes she has no interest in. It's ironic that she is so interested in the science of language when actual communication doesn't come naturally to her at all; this is obvious in her elusive conversations with Ivan, an older Hungarian mathematics student she develops a crush on. Their connection exists almost entirely in an intellectual space, built on cryptic email exchanges filled with riddles and metaphors that don't quite hold up when they're face-to-face. The Idiot also shows her internal struggle partly through her relationship with Svetlana, her Serbian classmate as they're complete opposites. Selin is hesitant and introspective, while Svetlana is charismatic and assertive. As her closest friend, Svetlana is constantly pushing Selin out of her comfort zone with endless theories about life that inspire her to question her own assumptions. Throughout the novel, Selin becomes increasingly withdrawn as she overanalyzes every interaction. Her alienation is shown through detached observations and feelings of being an outsider who is unable to fully participate in the world around her. She's supposed to be the main character in her life story but she's just sitting on the sidelines. She lives in her head so much that when she does try to communicate it comes across as very awkward. There's a moment in the book where one of her classmates is walking past saying hello and it stops her dead in her tracks. "Hey Selin, how's it going," he said. I paused to reply. Svetlana also had to stop walking, and so did the guy. None of us could go until I said something. But I thought and I thought, and couldn't think of what to say. After what felt like hours, I just gave up and started walking again." Once the school year ends, Ivan heads off to Budapest while Selin takes a summer job teaching English in rural Hungary. She spends most of her time in remote villages, feeling more isolated than ever as she navigates the awkward gap between her romanticized ideas and life itself. The novel explores alienation, identity & self-discovery, existentialism, communication, and love. "It can be really exasperating to look back at your past. What's the matter with you? I want to ask her, my younger self, shaking her shoulder. If I did that, she would probably cry. Maybe I would cry, too." I thought l overanalyzed things, but Selin definitely has me beat. She's the ultimate overanalyzer. Living in your head is exhausting; the internal pressure of fine-tuning your tone, body language, and scenarios is draining. I find myself doing this with my social interactions, only to end up feeling awkward or judged the moment I finally speak. There are various parts in the book where I think Batuman is teasing the reader. One example is when she mentions the same thing multiple times in the same paragraph or within the span of a page. Early on, when Selin is shopping for gloves, she mentions the store name three times in a single paragraph. Like, I already know she's buying gloves at that specific store! Honestly, I was like, Wait, does she actually think I'm an idiot? Another example is a reference to Baskin-Robbins that I looked up and couldn't find any information about, so I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.😂 I'm excited to get my hands on Either/Or. I was in B&N over the weekend and saw the last copy on the shelf but it was messed up.😩 I read the excerpt of it at the end of the book and I'm really looking forward to spending more time with Selin! This is one of those books you either like it or you don't. And I'm so so happy that I loved it.

The sentences are short, the prose seems simple, you start to ask yourself how this book ended up in your hands, and then you cannot put it down. The simplicity is only apparent. The narrative is carefully crafted. Although at times it felt like a stream of consciousness and disjointed, I felt closer and closer to Selin with each page. When she was happy I felt happy, when she was sad I felt sad, when she was confused I spent my day slightly confused. Even though she sometimes did stupid things, I could not get angry at her. It is a rare experience that I’ve only had with a handful of novels before.

I wanted so badly to love this book. But I didn't. And it made me question my own intellect, my own taste. After all, this book has won awards from groups of people who are far smarter than I. I suppose the higher-intellect prose is lost on me. The main character is just...boring and annoying. She walks a lot, runs occasionally, takes lofty classes at Harvard, and analyzes the world around her constantly, without ever arriving at any conclusions or really doing anything...she just sort of lets herself be batted about by the winds of fate. Including traveling to Hungary for the summer to teach English. Her favorite response to any question that requires thought..."I don't know". It's a very long book, and took me a very long time to read, as I just couldn't settle down into it and read for hours on end like I normally do. I give the author 5 stars for her writing style in general, but I wish she had given her main female character more huevos. And the story just...ends. I had that horrible, unfinished, empty feeling I get at the end of books where there is no real resolution. Some book critics call this book "funny". There were a couple spots where I almost chuckled. A couple. Almost.

A lot of readers may describe this book as pedantic or tedious or dull. I understand why they're saying that, but I'll have to disagree for this reason: the beauty of this book is in its craft, not its plot. The narrator's idiosyncratic observations about the world, her matter-of-fact exchanges with both close friends and strangers, and her quaint attempts at describing how she's feeling are all so beautifully human that if you resign yourself to the fact that nothing out of the ordinary is going to happen here and there are no "events," you can purely enjoy a funny, authentic narrative voice from a character who is trying to find her place in the world. I found myself underlining about a third of this novel because there is so much brilliance and eloquence. It reminded me of Catcher in the Rye with a much more insightful, mature, compassionate narrator. Besides, when you reach the novel's heartbreaking last paragraph, you realize that form complements function. In other words: the novel was designed for nothing to happen. That's kind of the point. Life, more often than not, is just life. The question is: can we, like Batuman, find wonder and beauty and humor in it all? Despite being over 400 pages, this is a whip-quick read. It's broken up into sections that are rarely more than four pages and are often hardly a page. It's a perfect commuting book, if you are often forced to pause, but it could also easily be breezed through in a week or two. I highly, highly recommend it. It left a very positive impression on me.

I had mixed feelings about Elif Batuman’s coming of age novel, The Idiot. At first, I loathed it. I found the laundry list of “What I did at Yale” trite, boring, and mundane. I fell into two competing emotional states while trudging through the first half of this book. Just as I was about to throw in the metaphorical hat, Batuman would say something profound about friendship and life. Each time this happened, it stopped me in my tracks and I’d reread the passage over and over just to make sure I hadn’t imagined the unanticipated philosophical weight. Then at page 161, the story changed for me. Selin who has a crush on Ivan from Russian class, spend an awkward day together. As they watch the sunrise from Ivan’s room, Selin notices Ivan’s lamp. It’s the same lamp she has, and she likes the thought of them both sitting under a similar light. She mentions the identical room décor and Ivan says how he doesn’t like the lamp because it’s mass-produced. It was at this moment I identified with Selin and her relationship with Ivan. She liked the lamp and thought it both functional and pleasing to the eye. How it had been produced and its lack of uniqueness didn’t both her, after all, it’s just a lamp. That scene struck gold with me, and after that I made myself stop being such a snob about Batuman’s list of college activities and classes, and I settled into the characters. Ivan is a senior who has a girlfriend but likes the attention he garners from Selin. They begin an email correspondence that is one of the most convoluted conversations in the English language. Selin chalks this up to Ivan being from Hungary and cultural differences. Svetlana, another student from Russian, strikes up a friendship of opposites with Selin. Herein lies the strength of their bond. Selin, who aspires to be a writer has trouble expressing herself while Svetlana has no trouble at all, and extends her ease with feelings to analyzing other’s emotional shortcomings. Peter, the Ph.D. student who runs a study abroad program is overanalytical and direct. Don’t use an idiom in a creative way in Pete’s presence, he’ll call you on the saying’s literal meaning and how you got it wrong. The second half of The Idiot is a much different story from the first. The novel transitions from short passages of activities and classroom interaction to become more of a narrative. Selin, smitten with Ivan, but unsure how to proceed, goes to Hungary for the summer to teach English through a program run by Peter. Here she hopes to spend time with Ivan who will be home for the summer before going off to graduates school in California. Selin stumbles gracefully through unforgettable Hungarian personalities and realizes she’d gone to Hungary to be near Ivan, who is not around. She begins to wonder about her folly when she realizes it’s not about Ivan, it’s about her, and she tries to enjoy herself. I enjoyed the second half, and I looked forward to reading it. I also realized how necessary the first half is to the second. While Selin’s time in Hungary is the better part of the novel, it isn’t possible without the trudging through the Yale Daily Times. Part II can’t stand alone. We need the character development, the friendships, and the nonsensical email conversations. Without these aspects, the story falls apart. As one who attended college at the birth of the internet, I appreciate the historical significance of The Idiot. I hadn’t thought about my college years regarding history, which makes me feel a little old. That aside, I sort of enjoyed The Idiot, or at least I think I did. The second half buffered the first which bored and irritated me, but I think that may have been the point. I’m not sure if I can recommend this novel. I think doing so might burn a bridge or two.

Great printing quality

Ana karakterin bakış açısından üniversite günleri.

This is one of the best books I've ever read. It's almost about "nothing" (aka little plot) but she wrote it so beautifully; it's basically poetry imo.

Una historia lenta en un principio pero es una joya narrativa :)

It arrived ruined and I applied for a return. I took the same pic. The package was not mailed in time by someone who I asked to do it because I was not there and now I cannot return so am stuck with yes a good book but with a ruined cover.