How I Became Stupid

With a title like this gracing the front cover, you might get the impression that this is a tale of wrong choices, longing for the good ole’ days and trying to figure out how it all got away.

You’d be mostly wrong…mostly.

How I Became Stupid is a tale about Antoine, who feels forever burdened by his astounding intelligence and natural curiosity about the world he inhabits. The weight of his knowledge is stifling and he longs to become one of the drooling, ignorant masses he sees around him every day. His goal by whatever means necessary is to dumb himself down into apparent nothingness in a crowd. Only then, he thinks, or deduces rather, can he find true happiness. He tries various methods and over-complicated ways to end up in show more places most people find themselves without thinking at all. This sarcastically comic journey follows these brave attempts to limit the reaches of his mind and the effects it has on those who know him, before and after his inclusion into the world of the stupid. Antoine is a wanderer, a rover, a vagabond of the mind, yearning for a place where his mind doesn’t run free because it sees nothing and nowhere to run to.

Martin Page, a French author, created Antoine almost as a reaction and retribution of the world of today. We cling to evolution and parade around preening in front of all other creatures, but not with our feathers or our fur, since we lost those long ago, but we preen with our minds and our reason. As a race we lord our cognitive thought over all other organisms, but Antoine shows us it comes with a hefty price tag. Martin’s novel gives us a glimpse into the mirror, a vision of someone we all hide deep in the closet who judges other people, overthinks each and every detail of the life before his eyes and who has a problem taking anything at face value. The eternal question posed by the book is whether there is a way to tone down that voice in our mind? Reel in the ego and superego and just become one with the mass consciousness, oh, and don’t forget to enjoy it as well.

This was a quick and enjoyable read, laced with wry wit, sarcasm and unique characters, people who would have to be incredibly singular just to stand hanging around Antoine in the first place. I felt the lesson I took away was you can never run away from who you really are and to be truly happy you need to start with acceptance of that fact. A tall tale indeed, but one that can be accomplished with a little time, energy and possibly a nice, creamy bar of dark chocolate. show less

Wow, what an odd book! Antoine, a highly intelligent man who can't find happiness decides his intellect is in the way. He tries drinking, pills, stock trading, TV, everything. Slowly he loses his conscience and starts blending into the society around him.

Very funny at times, this book also touches upon some serious subjects such as a loss of a moral compass and what can happen when you walk blithely through life, completely unaware of how your actions affect others.

I loved the part with the suicidal woman in the hospital, btw. Hilarious. Yes, the humor is dark.

The end is bizarre.

(I've just read the other reviews. There is so much hate for this book! I loved reading the other reviews - they are clever and funny. Yes, the ending sucks!)

This novel has a surrealistic quality, in much the same vein as Perfume, another translated from French, leaving a nagging question of whether it might make more sense in the original, untranslated version. The premise is an entertaining one—Antoine has decided that his intellect is a disability which prevents him from fully participating in what he sees as the happiness experienced by tout le monde. Wisely the examples of this are not multiplied, but as a for instance, Antoine has a very restricted diet because he understands too much about the farming and food production processes that are either taking advantage of workers, being cruel to animals or harming the environment. Failing at other options, including suicide, Antoine show more succeeds in suppressing his mental prowess by taking a job as an investment broker, becoming rich and indulging in all of the accoutrements of success-clothes, rich foods and cars. But in the process he loses his bearings, and his quirky group of friends who then stage an intervention to bring him back to himself. He abandons his trappings of success in a subversive, revolutionary fashion bringing down the financial operation that fuelled his material attainments. The book finishes with Antoine finding a girl with whom he seems to share an anarchic, individualistic, playful approach to life, which, presumably is his true path to happiness. show less

In sharp contrast, how i became stupid by Martin Page is brimming over with cariacatured human characters. Antoine is a 25 year old French academic, specialising in Aramaic, who has a problem - he's intelligent, horribly self-aware of everything he does, and the moral implications of his actions. Deciding that his intelligence is a curse, he sets out to remedy matters - first by trying to become an alcoholic, dabbles with the idea of suicide, and then eventually manages to fins happiness of a sort in a gently dumbing anti-depressant called Happyzac that changes his life, as he accidentally stumbles into wealth and consumerism.
Gloriously over the top and silly, this is a satire which happily takes potshots at anti-intellectualism, and show more masks a surprisingly positive outlook behind a veneer of cynicism and world weariness. The final intervention scenes, when Antoine's friends decide they have had enough of the greedy self-obsessed creature he has become are great fun. Antoine's mini journey through modern life takes plenty of shots at both sides, with both sides flaws clearly on show.

It's all very French. show less

I enjoyed this book.The poor guy that is the lead character feels that intelligence is a curse and begins a quest to be like everyone else. You will feel bad for him at how quickly his attempt to be an alcoholic fails. And you will laugh at the absurdity of the suicide class. And then he really gets serious about his quest for stupidity and the cheeky passages will make you cackle aloud.

Shallow. Pompous. Self-indulgent. The author hints at the idea that we are each responsible for developing a worthwhile self, but never develops it in a meaningful or engaging way. Raising the point got the book a second star; exploring it might have earned it a third. I agree with lucasmurtinho's review (2006), that this would have been more fruitful material for a strongly-written essay. As it is, a quick read, and still not worth the time.

Parisian self-styled intellectual Antoine realizes his lifestyle is making him miserable, and decides to try anything that will make him better able to endure the tedium that is life. Abandoning his assortment of chicly weird friends, he tries alcoholism (a half-litre of beer lands him in ER), a career as a bonds-trader (he's a wild success), etc. Eventually, natch, he realizes his happiest state is when he allows himself just to be himself. I chuckled a lot in the first 30 pages or so, less often thereafter. There are some good lines:

"My life would improve if I were stupid."
"That's stupid."
"I'm on the right track, then. . . ." (p73)

Overall, though, I was very disappointed; an excellent premise seemed very poorly exploited.