The Idiot

A book that meanders. The writing is precise, which makes the lack of obvious message feel intentional if the reader doesn't mind wandering. Consistent focus lands only on different ways of communication and connection: language structure vs constructs of understanding, roommates vs friendships, epistolary (email) vs conversation. Can the way someone communicates change the way they see the world? Do relationships only thrive in one environment and not the next? Does the way one presents herself to the world determine what paths she is offered? We, as readers, expect books to give us some answers - a conclusion with a veritable message about the world - this book does not. Instead, I wonder if Batuman's point is simply to live and show more experience life. The main character, a writer, muses that perhaps writing "wasn't just to record something past, but to prolong the present... to stretch out time until the next thing happened." What's next isn't important; how we interpret and spend the present is key. show less

It's 1995, Selin is a freshman at Harvard and she's chosen an odd mix of classes for herself as she explores how languages work, interact with each other and influence how their speakers think. She has roommates, which is an adjustment, and she meets two people in a beginning Russian class; the enigmatic Hungarian math major, Ivan, and a charismatic Serbian girl named Svetlana. Svetlana forces Selin out into the world of Harvard as she lives her life more colorfully than the careful scholars around her. Selin and Ivan begin a charged email correspondence but Selin is unsure about where their relationship is going, or even if they have a relationship. In the second part of the novel, Selin travels, first to Paris with Svetlana, then to show more Hungary, where she has signed up to teach English in a rural village at the suggestion of Ivan, and then to visit family in Turkey.

This novel hit my reading sweet spot. I do love a well-told story about a person discovering themselves and the wider world when they go off to university. And Selin is an intelligent, curious person to follow as she explores both her new environment and her intellectual world. She is simultaneously cautious and prone to rushing headlong into new situations. She refuses to cede her agency, even when she has no idea what she should do. And the language stuff is fascinating. Selin's an observer and she notices how different languages approach the same object or concept, and how words travel across languages.

All of The Idiot was brilliant fun. There were some small bumps in the pacing, but the novel soared as Selin set off on her summer travels. She's a fish out of water, but an intelligent fish who is willing to see what life on land is like. Elif Batuman is a fierce, intelligent writer. I suspect that readers who don't have an interest in language might be less delighted than I was by this wonderful book. show less

What the hell was that? This book is brilliant. The writing is as witty as I’ve ever experienced—so subtle and so plain and rich simultaneously. The book is about first love, but more than that it’s about the absolutely mundane happenings of a brilliant and worldly Harvard student. It’s beyond boring and also insipid and densely philosophical. It’s a host of contradictions and I really have no idea what to think! Not sure I even liked it!

Selin is a Turkish-American in her first year at Harvard. She is privileged (though perhaps not as privileged as some of her peers), brilliant in her way (very much like most of her peers), curious, naive, and open to possibility. Her eclectic course selections, including math, philosophy of language, linguistics, and introductory Russian provide lots of opportunity for her to feel lost but also plenty of fodder for learning about life, or at least what passes for life at Harvard. The one subject for which she is least well equipped is, not surprisingly perhaps, herself. She will constantly be confounded, anxious, and emotionally in turmoil as she lives and learns and grows over the course of the following year.

Selin’s enthusiasm for show more life is infectious but can at times be tiring. Fortunately she is surrounded by equally quirky and compelling friends. There is Ivan, with whom she forms an oblique relationship. But most interesting to me was her friend Svetlana. She is irrepressible. And you can’t help feeling as you read that Selin would be much better suited directing her romantic energies towards Svetlana, whether reciprocated or not. By comparison, Ivan comes across as a bit creepy.

The writing here is episodic and lively, full of observation and humour. Despite the potential for catastrophe that Selin seems to court, she wanders through her own life and across half the globe in an almost charmed air. Which of course marks this as the romance that it is. And will keep you reading even if you don’t fully identify with any of the characters or their situations. You’ll want to keep on with Selin past the end of her first year at Harvard and will no doubt be delighted to learn that Batuman’s second novel picks up where this one leaves off. As I am.

Recommended. show less

Üzerine yazmak istediğim atmosfer, birkaç yıl önce annemle gittiğimiz Meksika seyahatinde ortaya çıkmıştı. Bizi havaalanına götürmek için kiralanmış olan otobüsle ilgili bir karışıklık olmuştu ve otobüs bizi tuhaf bir otelin pembe karolu avlusuna bırakmıştı. Hoparlörlerden Albinoni’nin Adagio’su duyuluyor ve üzerimize bir şeyler yağıyordu, havaya baktığımızda kül olduğunu anlamıştık. Elif Batuman’ın Budala’sı ergenlik ile yetişkinlik, aşk ile cinsellik ve konuşmak ile yazmak arasında duran bir güneş saati adeta; gölgenin ne yana düşeceği ise muazzam bir muamma. Harvard’daki ilk senesinde genç bir kadın, adı Selin, aylak aylak dolaşıyor kampüste. İlk kez gördüğü show more e-posta, içemediği birkaç şişe bira, klasik edebiyatıyla Rusça, arkadaşları Ivan ve Svetlana… Nasıl duruyor hepsi bir arada? Selin binbir kültür arasında dolaşıp farklılıkları ve aynılıkları, saçmalıkları ve akla yatkınlıkları anlatıyor. İmgelerle dolu masalsı diliyle, derin bir duygusallıkla, entelektüel mizahıyla… Anı ile kurmacanın arasına gerilmiş ince bir ip Budala ve Elif Batuman bu ipin üzerinde ustalıkla yürüyor. show less

i wish this book didn’t make me feel so naked and seen, but that is why i hated/loved it, devoured it. i haven’t read a book like this in a long time.

i love the long discussions on language, linguistics, and all that is lost in translation. they might not be for everyone, but they’re exactly my thing. i love the settings—first on a university campus, and then hitchhiking across europe and tiny hungarian villages. i love the humour; it’s done well, and there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments in here.

as for the characters: i started off hating ivan—like demi lovato in that meme going “get a job! get away from her!”—and despising selin for being such a pushover (i fancied i’d have pushed him off the plane or show more something, if i were in her place). but honestly, selin had her fair share of autonomy. i get her. ivan was an asshole but so what? assholes can be attractive (understatement), and can have their sincere moments. and sometimes you can want to be a pushover for some asshole from the other side of the world, and there’s your female autonomy, i guess.

i was unable to put this book down for long enough to grab a pencil and underline bits that stood out to me, or to write notes to myself, so i have no point of reference right now for choice excerpts to include in this review, but: read this book. thank me later.

p.s. looking forward to reading the sequel! show less

This book took 50 pages to make me not want to forfeit and 100 pages to immerse me in the world of Selin and her random philosophical thoughts. The writing is ADHD-coded, but in a dry chuckling, humorous way. So so different than what I usually read in fiction!

Batuman paints the exhilarating moments imagined and spent with one's first love so phenomenally. The unorthodox method of flirting via school emails (was this how the 2000s worked?), the almost scattered-brain-like blunders, the hidden motives behind Ivan's words — they are so perfectly encapsulated that I couldn't help but swoon. Also, I learned an awful lot about Russian literature and linguistics through Selin's perspective ... and let me tell you, she's not the biggest show more advocate of pedantic language studies.

"I kept thinking about the uneven quality of time – the way it was almost always so empty, and then with no warning came a few days that felt so dense and alive and real that it seemed indisputable that that was what life was, that its true nature had finally been revealed. But then time passed and unthinkablely grew dead again, and it turned out the fullness had been an aberration and might never come back." show less