Penguin Press, March 14, 2017.
Five Stars
The Idiot is the coming of age story of Selin, the daughter of Turkish
immigrants, as she moves from her home in New Jersey to begin her freshman year
at Harvard in 1995. Brilliant and outstanding as a high school student, Selin
finds herself thrown into a group of multicultural and multilingual characters
as broad as the cast of a Russian novel – in fact, this book owes a debt to
Russian literature in many ways, including the Dostoyevsky title.
Selin is aimless and almost ambivalent about her
future, and she signs up for classes almost at random. Her focus is on
linguistics, although she quickly loses her faith in the power of language to
truly communicate. In her introductory Russian language class, Selin becomes friends
with Serbian student Svetlana, who seems to inherently understand the social
conventions of university in ways that Selin cannot. She also meets Ivan, a
math major from Hungary – she falls for his depth of character, but their
entire relationship may be based on the misunderstandings of the English
language.
In 1995, there is no social media, and email is brand
new. Selin and Ivan begin to communicate through email almost by accident, and
she obsesses over their thrilling correspondence – the kind of conversations
that are filled with so much intense meaning when you’re a teenager, but in
reality they are mostly nonsense. Ivan’s thoughts are new and mysterious to
Selin, but in real life, she is mostly speechless in his presence – especially
when he talks about his elusive girlfriend. Meanwhile, the students act out an
unrequited love story in Russian class, which takes on new meaning for Selin.
Selin’s constant narration of seemingly random events
are very evocative of the absurdity of Russian literature. Her naïve observations
of the world around her are deadpan and dry, unintentionally hilarious. The description
of every small detail of Selin’s daily life distracts from the forward motion
of the plot, but I think that’s the point – her use of language subverts the
traditional plot, and shows us how complicated communication can become. Selin’s
inner world is so charming and clever, I never wanted it to end. Without the
surprising amount of detail, the novel could have easily been much shorter than
its 450-page count, but I could have kept reading much longer. However, I don’t
think that will be the case for everyone – the writing style is divisive, and readers
will either love or hate The Idiot.
At the end of the school year, Ivan arranges for
Selin to teach English in several small Hungarian villages, while he stays in
Budapest. Selin first travels to Paris with Svetlana, which makes life in the
villages seem even more absurd. She continues to explore her experiences of
first love, and she is filled with as much confusion as exhilaration when she
meets with Ivan. Their relationship is unconventional, rejecting the usual
young adult romance tropes in clever and unexpected ways.
Throughout her journey, Selin continues to explore
the complications of communication, especially as language starts to seem so
arbitrary to her. Ending up in Turkey, Selin begins to lose faith in the
narrative of her own life. She learns, as we all eventually do, that there is
no overarching plot to life – it isn’t a Russian novel, except for the fact
that it is unexpected and absurd.
It’s hard to explain why I loved this novel so much,
but Selin’s rich inner world just resonated with me. Batuman is certainly an
author to watch, and I will likely be purchasing this, and any other novel,
that she writes.
I received this book from Penguin Press and NetGalley
in exchange for an honest review.
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