The Idiot (Batuman novel)

The Idiot (2017) is the semi-autobiographical first novel by the Turkish American writer Elif Batuman. It is a bildungsroman, and concerns a college freshman, Selin, attending Harvard University in the 1990s.[1][2][3]

The Idiot
AuthorElif Batuman
LanguageEnglish
Publication date
March 2017
ISBN978-1-59420-561-3

Plot

Selin Karadağ is a freshman studying linguistics at Harvard University. She meets an older Hungarian mathematics student, Ivan, in a Russian language class and the two begin corresponding over email, and occasionally spend time together in person. While Selin and Ivan at times seem interested in each other romantically, neither know how and when to express their feelings. The summer after her freshman year, Selin travels to Paris with her college friend Svetlana, and then to Hungary to teach English in a remote village, a job she accepts partly to be closer to Ivan. At the end of the summer, Selin returns to Harvard and Ivan goes to California to pursue graduate mathematics.[4][5]

Reception

The Idiot was a 2018 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Fiction.[6] According to the literary review aggregator LitHub, the novel received mostly positive reviews.[7] Writing for The New York Times, Dwight Garner describes how "Each paragraph is a small anthology of well-made observations."[8] Though, Garner ultimately describes, the protagonist, Selin, as "an interesting human who, very much like this wry but distant novel, never becomes an enveloping one."[8] Conversely, Annalisa Quinn of NPR asserts that "The Idiot encapsulates those years of humiliating, but vibrant, confusion the come in your late teens, a confusion that's not even sexual, but existential and practical".[9] Quinn concludes by noting that, "The Idiot is both boring and strangely intense, fraught and apparently meaningless, confusing and inevitable, endless — and over in a moment."[10] Vox gave the novel 3.5 stars out of 5, with reviewer Constance Grady noting that "the atmosphere at the heart of The Idiot is one of linguistic alienation, when the distance between what words say and what they mean seems insurmountable."[11] Grady further describes how "the heartbreak that ensues is slightly melancholy, but it’s not overwhelming: The Idiot doesn’t bring you in close enough for that. It keeps you far enough away that you have to pay more attention to its words than to the emotions that they’re describing."[11]

References
  1. Quinn, Annalisa (18 March 2017). "Both Pointless And Playful, 'The Idiot' Is Like A Long Dream". NPR. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  2. Garner, Dwight (28 February 2017). "Review: Elif Batuman's 'The Idiot' Sets a Romantic Crush on Simmer". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  3. Margolin, Elaine (1 March 2017). "Elif Batuman's 'The Idiot'". The Washington post. Retrieved 20 March 2019.
  4. Eller, Erica. "Mind your Suffixes: On the Turkish Themes in The Idiot, Elif Batuman". Bosphorus Review of Books. Retrieved 9 June 2019.
  5. Marshall, Virginia. "Elif Batuman Has Learned Nothing at All: On 'The Idiot'". The Millions. Retrieved 9 June 2019.
  6. "Finalist: The Idiot, by Elif Batuman (Penguin Press)". Columbia University. Retrieved 9 June 2019.
  7. "The Idiot". Book Marks. Lithub. Retrieved 21 June 2019.
  8. Garner, Dwight (2017-02-28). "Review: Elif Batuman's 'The Idiot' Sets a Romantic Crush on Simmer". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  9. "Both Pointless And Playful, 'The Idiot' Is Like A Long Dream". NPR.org. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  10. "Both Pointless And Playful, 'The Idiot' Is Like A Long Dream". NPR.org. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  11. Grady, Constance (2017-03-29). "The Idiot is mostly about semiotics. It's really funny". Vox. Retrieved 2020-09-27.


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