The Idiot: A Novel
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction • A New York Times Book Review Notable Book • Nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction
“Easily the funniest book I’ve read this year.” —GQ
“Masterly funny debut novel . . . Erudite but never pretentious, The Idiot will make you crave more books by Batuman.” —Sloane Crosley, Vanity Fair
A portrait of the artist as a young woman. A novel about not just discovering but inventing oneself.
The year is 1995, and email is new. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. She signs up for classes in subjects she has never heard of, befriends her charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate, Svetlana, and, almost by accident, begins corresponding with Ivan, an older mathematics student from Hungary. Selin may have barely spoken to Ivan, but with each email they exchange, the act of writing seems to take on new and increasingly mysterious meanings.
At the end of the school year, Ivan goes to Budapest for the summer, and Selin heads to the Hungarian countryside, to teach English in a program run by one of Ivan's friends. On the way, she spends two weeks visiting Paris with Svetlana. Selin's summer in Europe does not resonate with anything she has previously heard about the typical experiences of American college students, or indeed of any other kinds of people. For Selin, this is a journey further inside herself: a coming to grips with the ineffable and exhilarating confusion of first love, and with the growing consciousness that she is doomed to become a writer.
With superlative emotional and intellectual sensitivity, mordant wit, and pitch-perfect style, Batuman dramatizes the uncertainty of life on the cusp of adulthood. Her prose is a rare and inimitable combination of tenderness and wisdom; its logic as natural and inscrutable as that of memory itself. The Idiot is a heroic yet self-effacing reckoning with the terror and joy of becoming a person in a world that is as intoxicating as it is disquieting. Batuman's fiction is unguarded against both life's affronts and its beauty--and has at its command the complete range of thinking and feeling which they entail.
Named one the best books of the year by Refinery29 • Mashable One • Elle Magazine • The New York Times • Bookpage • Vogue • NPR • Buzzfeed •The Millions
“Easily the funniest book I’ve read this year.” —GQ
“Masterly funny debut novel . . . Erudite but never pretentious, The Idiot will make you crave more books by Batuman.” —Sloane Crosley, Vanity Fair
A portrait of the artist as a young woman. A novel about not just discovering but inventing oneself.
The year is 1995, and email is new. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. She signs up for classes in subjects she has never heard of, befriends her charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate, Svetlana, and, almost by accident, begins corresponding with Ivan, an older mathematics student from Hungary. Selin may have barely spoken to Ivan, but with each email they exchange, the act of writing seems to take on new and increasingly mysterious meanings.
At the end of the school year, Ivan goes to Budapest for the summer, and Selin heads to the Hungarian countryside, to teach English in a program run by one of Ivan's friends. On the way, she spends two weeks visiting Paris with Svetlana. Selin's summer in Europe does not resonate with anything she has previously heard about the typical experiences of American college students, or indeed of any other kinds of people. For Selin, this is a journey further inside herself: a coming to grips with the ineffable and exhilarating confusion of first love, and with the growing consciousness that she is doomed to become a writer.
With superlative emotional and intellectual sensitivity, mordant wit, and pitch-perfect style, Batuman dramatizes the uncertainty of life on the cusp of adulthood. Her prose is a rare and inimitable combination of tenderness and wisdom; its logic as natural and inscrutable as that of memory itself. The Idiot is a heroic yet self-effacing reckoning with the terror and joy of becoming a person in a world that is as intoxicating as it is disquieting. Batuman's fiction is unguarded against both life's affronts and its beauty--and has at its command the complete range of thinking and feeling which they entail.
Named one the best books of the year by Refinery29 • Mashable One • Elle Magazine • The New York Times • Bookpage • Vogue • NPR • Buzzfeed •The Millions
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Community Reviews
I have to admit that the one thing that most drew me to this book to begin with was the narrator's name, Selin, which is almost identical to my last name! Yes, that is a good reason to read a book. Also, a good friend read it and said this Selin reminded her of me. Yes, I could see that. She's a highly intelligent person in her first year at Harvard. I mean, my two associate's degrees from business school pretty much equal a Harvard education, right?
It quickly becomes clear it's Selin's awkwardness in almost every social encounter she has that actually sparked the comparison. This is a semi-autobiographical novel, and the author's dry wit is just absolutely hilarious at times, describing the ridiculous situations she finds herself in. Ok, maybe that's me too? I can be pretty funny sometimes, you know.
This was such a joy to read, even though it moves at a glacial pace, but you don't care because just going through the everyday with Selin was pure fun, while at the same time sharing her angst and hoping she finds her way and also hoping she doesn't, because what fun would that be?
She's a linguistics major, and language plays a big role in the story, in many different ways. Outside of school, she tries to tutor students in ESL and fails miserably, of course in a hilarious way. I could relate to this from my year of being a Reading Partners volunteer, where every day I went to a local elementary school before work (before work! I'm not a morning person!) to help "my" student, Christian, with his reading. I really felt like we were connecting and I was sharing my love if reading with him and he was probably going to grow up to be a famous writer and thank me for inspiring him… Until one day I looked at the little progress board for each student on their "reading journey" and he was dead last. Zero progress.
But I digress.
Selin meets Ivan in one of her classes, and though they don't speak much in person, she starts a sort of email relationship with him. (Did I mention this is 1997? So email is kind of new.) They find they can say things to each other that can't be said in person, and she marvels at the back-and-forth and how all of your words come right back to you, attached to the reply (again, 1997, email a kind of new phenomenon…).
I guess it's important to note that Selin is of Turkish descent but was born and raised in New Jersey. Ivan is Hungarian, studying mathematics in the States. She finds herself falling hopelessly for Ivan. He convinces her to sign up to teach English in a Hungarian village for the summer and they can "see each other on weekends." Of course it doesn't quite work out this way, and of course a lot of awkwardness and ridiculousness happens in between as Selin is trying to find her way, wondering why it always seems that everyone else has it all together and they all seem to move to a secret rhythm that keeps eluding her.
Oh, did I mention Ivan has a girlfriend? A not Selin girlfriend? Oh, is that a problem, he wonders?
My astute friend thought this was Batuman"s brilliant revenge on an arrogant ex-boyfriend. She just might have something there...
It quickly becomes clear it's Selin's awkwardness in almost every social encounter she has that actually sparked the comparison. This is a semi-autobiographical novel, and the author's dry wit is just absolutely hilarious at times, describing the ridiculous situations she finds herself in. Ok, maybe that's me too? I can be pretty funny sometimes, you know.
This was such a joy to read, even though it moves at a glacial pace, but you don't care because just going through the everyday with Selin was pure fun, while at the same time sharing her angst and hoping she finds her way and also hoping she doesn't, because what fun would that be?
She's a linguistics major, and language plays a big role in the story, in many different ways. Outside of school, she tries to tutor students in ESL and fails miserably, of course in a hilarious way. I could relate to this from my year of being a Reading Partners volunteer, where every day I went to a local elementary school before work (before work! I'm not a morning person!) to help "my" student, Christian, with his reading. I really felt like we were connecting and I was sharing my love if reading with him and he was probably going to grow up to be a famous writer and thank me for inspiring him… Until one day I looked at the little progress board for each student on their "reading journey" and he was dead last. Zero progress.
But I digress.
Selin meets Ivan in one of her classes, and though they don't speak much in person, she starts a sort of email relationship with him. (Did I mention this is 1997? So email is kind of new.) They find they can say things to each other that can't be said in person, and she marvels at the back-and-forth and how all of your words come right back to you, attached to the reply (again, 1997, email a kind of new phenomenon…).
I guess it's important to note that Selin is of Turkish descent but was born and raised in New Jersey. Ivan is Hungarian, studying mathematics in the States. She finds herself falling hopelessly for Ivan. He convinces her to sign up to teach English in a Hungarian village for the summer and they can "see each other on weekends." Of course it doesn't quite work out this way, and of course a lot of awkwardness and ridiculousness happens in between as Selin is trying to find her way, wondering why it always seems that everyone else has it all together and they all seem to move to a secret rhythm that keeps eluding her.
Oh, did I mention Ivan has a girlfriend? A not Selin girlfriend? Oh, is that a problem, he wonders?
My astute friend thought this was Batuman"s brilliant revenge on an arrogant ex-boyfriend. She just might have something there...
I found the wandering, point-of-fact style of narration interesting, but it's gotten boring after a while. I didn't get to finishing this one.
I couldn't finish the book. I found it very difficult and extremely dry. Only two of the nine women in our club were able to finish the book. It did, however, lead to a good discussion at our meeting, between those who finished it and those who read part of it.
The main character had a very bland personality, but it added charm to the book. I really loved the themes in it, especially the allusions to classic literature.
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