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sam_as_in_3 's review for:
The Idiot
by Elif Batuman
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The narration sounds a tad unnatural but the story was enjoyable and the main character highly relateable to me, even though I'm older and not in a competitive university. I collected some passages I related to:
I never knew how to gossip and this passage in the book describes the uncomfortable feeling of having done it perfectly: "The feeling of having betrayed someone was just as bad as the feeling of beeing betrayed. It was worse. [...] Nothing about Ralph's back indicated that he had or had not heard her. How could I have talked about him to Svetlana? How could I have given her any information about him at all? It occured to me how sorry I would be if even Hannah heard the way I talked about her sometimes. How are you supposed to talk about people?"
And the same for another passage: "Dread gripped my stomach. I had betrayed Ivan by talking about him, by causing a stranger to call him 'this computer fellow' and to compare him with the unibomber."
Gossiping nearly always feels like betrayal. Later you go on and find out information about a person, that changes your opinion on them but your opinion is already out there. Gossiping has to be done thoughtfully and carefully but first and foremost strategic. And that is exhausting.
I sadly related to Selin's reaction to her friend stealing their shared blanket while asleep: "But the moment I relaxed my hold Svetlana rolled away with reproachful murmur and reabsorbed my gains. I started to feel really depressed. It was like she didn't even know me anymore."
I can't count the times I felt intense feelings like this while being awake and people surrounding me were asleep. Waking people up that are grumpy about it? Also horrible. Snoring? An actual crime and you should be punished for it and despite my immense hate for you in this moment it will not be me.
And then right after she talks about her crush: "I wondered if Ivan was asleep. It was terrible to think that he was in this city, possibly very nearby but I couldn't see him or talk to him because he didn't love me. I couldn't be with him for one minute not even for the weird, leftover hours that nobody else wanted like from 1 to 3 AM on a Wednesday."
The HEARTACHE!
Selin and her friend are in a museum and are looking at paintings. Svetlana identifies with a Madonna and Selin with a buffet/side board in the Picasso museum. It is positioned between two people. "The sideboard was the thing between them. Svetlana said I had to take a more proactive view of my personhood. She said it wasn't okay to identfiy with furniture."
It mirrors Selin's social position with Ivan. He and his girlfriend are having a little trouble because he is emotionally intimate with Selin and spending time with her even though he knows she was (is) interested in him. A very visiual and simple analogy.
"I handed him back his shirt, then regretted it. Why hadn't I held onto it a little longer?" - that would be me
"I don't know" is potentially the sentence Seline says the most, especially when asked about her feelings or her opinion on something. It reminds me of myself when I was younger and the world and lives around me felt completely detached from my experience of life in it.
More passages I related to:
"I'm afraid I'll accidentally eat it all before I get there." I said. Following the rule that you had to pretend to have this problem where you couldn't resist chocolate.
"I was surprised when she asked if I had a boyfriend. I thought it was clear that I wasn't someone who had boyfriends but when I said I didn't she seemed disbelieving."
"I said bye first to be brave. I still thought bravery would be somehow rewarded."
"For the first five or six days I didn't suffer at all, carried along by the change of scene and the sense of a progression."
"For the first time in my life I couldn't think of anything I particularily wanted to study or to do. I still had the old idea of being a writer but that was being not doing. It didn't say what you were supposed to do."
The following paragraph is maybe a spoiler in a sense.
How could Ivan think he is not leading Selin on. Does he really believe that? He is definetly flirting, saying things like 'I wonder what we could do with this' about whipped cream, stroking her ear and repeteadly telling her to get out her clothes when they've gotten wet or dirty even when she's hesitant.
I liked that her time in Hungary was part of the story and not skipped over as a brief intermission. It felt uncomfortable to be there with her, especially at Rosa's/Roja's.
I never knew how to gossip and this passage in the book describes the uncomfortable feeling of having done it perfectly: "The feeling of having betrayed someone was just as bad as the feeling of beeing betrayed. It was worse. [...] Nothing about Ralph's back indicated that he had or had not heard her. How could I have talked about him to Svetlana? How could I have given her any information about him at all? It occured to me how sorry I would be if even Hannah heard the way I talked about her sometimes. How are you supposed to talk about people?"
And the same for another passage: "Dread gripped my stomach. I had betrayed Ivan by talking about him, by causing a stranger to call him 'this computer fellow' and to compare him with the unibomber."
Gossiping nearly always feels like betrayal. Later you go on and find out information about a person, that changes your opinion on them but your opinion is already out there. Gossiping has to be done thoughtfully and carefully but first and foremost strategic. And that is exhausting.
I sadly related to Selin's reaction to her friend stealing their shared blanket while asleep: "But the moment I relaxed my hold Svetlana rolled away with reproachful murmur and reabsorbed my gains. I started to feel really depressed. It was like she didn't even know me anymore."
I can't count the times I felt intense feelings like this while being awake and people surrounding me were asleep. Waking people up that are grumpy about it? Also horrible. Snoring? An actual crime and you should be punished for it and despite my immense hate for you in this moment it will not be me.
And then right after she talks about her crush: "I wondered if Ivan was asleep. It was terrible to think that he was in this city, possibly very nearby but I couldn't see him or talk to him because he didn't love me. I couldn't be with him for one minute not even for the weird, leftover hours that nobody else wanted like from 1 to 3 AM on a Wednesday."
The HEARTACHE!
Selin and her friend are in a museum and are looking at paintings. Svetlana identifies with a Madonna and Selin with a buffet/side board in the Picasso museum. It is positioned between two people. "The sideboard was the thing between them. Svetlana said I had to take a more proactive view of my personhood. She said it wasn't okay to identfiy with furniture."
It mirrors Selin's social position with Ivan. He and his girlfriend are having a little trouble because he is emotionally intimate with Selin and spending time with her even though he knows she was (is) interested in him. A very visiual and simple analogy.
"I handed him back his shirt, then regretted it. Why hadn't I held onto it a little longer?" - that would be me
"I don't know" is potentially the sentence Seline says the most, especially when asked about her feelings or her opinion on something. It reminds me of myself when I was younger and the world and lives around me felt completely detached from my experience of life in it.
More passages I related to:
"I'm afraid I'll accidentally eat it all before I get there." I said. Following the rule that you had to pretend to have this problem where you couldn't resist chocolate.
"I was surprised when she asked if I had a boyfriend. I thought it was clear that I wasn't someone who had boyfriends but when I said I didn't she seemed disbelieving."
"I said bye first to be brave. I still thought bravery would be somehow rewarded."
"For the first five or six days I didn't suffer at all, carried along by the change of scene and the sense of a progression."
"For the first time in my life I couldn't think of anything I particularily wanted to study or to do. I still had the old idea of being a writer but that was being not doing. It didn't say what you were supposed to do."
The following paragraph is maybe a spoiler in a sense.
How could Ivan think he is not leading Selin on. Does he really believe that? He is definetly flirting, saying things like 'I wonder what we could do with this' about whipped cream, stroking her ear and repeteadly telling her to get out her clothes when they've gotten wet or dirty even when she's hesitant.
I liked that her time in Hungary was part of the story and not skipped over as a brief intermission. It felt uncomfortable to be there with her, especially at Rosa's/Roja's.