"The Idiot" by Elif Batuman

The Idiot by Elif Batuman is a meandering and slow-paced account of experiences of a freshman student at Harvard in mid-1990s. Even though it is a work of fiction, it is largely autobiographical in nature. The main character Selin is a Turkish-American girl and the entire novel is written from her perspective. In fact, it reads as a series of observations and impressions, which she writes down as she meets her roommates, registers for classes and tries to develop new relationships.

I believe Batuman borrowed the name of the book from Dostoyevksy in order to highlight the inexperience and naiveté of the main character. In particular, Selin struggles in her romantic life. Early on in the semester, she meets a Hungarian student named Ivan in her Russian language class. They then get into an email exchange, which develops into a fascination with the online personas both of them present to each other. Once they decide to meet and talk in person, however, Ivan and Selin are unable to recreate the magic they both felt while writing emails.

Selin also appears to be largely disappointed with her academic life. She feels that her professors are by and large self-absorbed and removed from reality. She reads incessantly and keeps looking for outlets for her intellectual curiosity but ends up bitterly disappointed each time. She feels she is not learning anything. In the summer after her freshman year, following Ivan’s advice, she travels to Hungary to teach English in a village school. However, even there, her experiences are marred by her unrequited love and obsession with Ivan. She admits that her objective in traveling to Hungary was to learn more about him.

Overall, The Idiot is a pretty realistic depiction of how confusing, disappointing and painful growing up can be. However, even though Selin feels she is not learning anything during this first year of her adult life, she is in fact gaining valuable experiences of living and traveling on her own, making friends, choosing classes and subjects to study and to be more comfortable in her own skin. This is not a book about overcoming insurmountable obstacles, or gaining some ground-breaking perspective. It is quiet, largely dispassionate, and self-absorbed. I believe a lot of college students would probably be able to relate to Selin’s story or at least to some portion of it. I ended really enjoying this book and gave it 5 out of 5 stars.

"The Mother-Daughter Book Club" by Heather Vogel Frederick

I thought I would include something more lighthearted than the previous two reviews on this blog. In August, I picked up The Mother-Daughter Book Club at my local library. It was such a heart-warming read, that I definitely recommend it to all mothers and their daughters. The book is set in Concord, MA, the birthplace of Louisa May Alcott. There are a lot of references to Little Women (one of my all time favorite classics) and in fact this is the book the newly established book club picks to read.

Even though the book is truly lighthearted and cute, it also explores some tricky situations that middle school aged girls find themselves dealing with. Issues such as cliques, popularity, friendship and bullying are discussed in a very approachable and easy to discuss with kids manner. I think this could be a great audiobook for the entire family to listen to on a road trip, or if your daughter, little sister, granddaughter or niece likes to read, this is a perfect book to read and discuss together. 5 out of 5 stars - I definitely recommend it.

The Classics Challenge: "The Idiot" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Dostoyevsky is an intimidating name in the world of literature. Readers tend to avoid him for fear of not being able to understand his ideas. This is a pity. When I read The Idiot this past month, I was struck by how contemporary his prose was. Granted I read it in Russian, however his language is not archaic or hard to understand. Moreover, the subjects, the characters, the issues are all timeless and still relevant today.

The main theme in The Idiot is society's inability to take seriously an adult who conducts himself with childhood innocence and trust, who constantly gives people the benefit of a doubt and is always ready to see good in everyone. For others, such an individual (in this novel it is Prince Myshkin) is a subject of ridicule. His manner is not refined, his speech is not sophisticated, and he is very far from being street smart. He is always genuine and frank, compassionate to a fault, and is the absolute opposite of cynical. This is not compatible with our worldly notions of wisdom and maturity. Dostoevsky is a master of writing unforgettable characters. Each one is truly a masterpiece. Each one is complex and meticulously thought out. 

It is truly impossible to describe the depth of this novel in a blog post, so I will focus on one other theme which struck me as quite relevant today. The main female character Nastasya Filippovna was molested as a young girl by her benefactor and guardian. When she comes of age, she is basically a kept woman; or a fallen woman in the eyes of all upstanding citizens. What Dostoyevsky zeros in is her brokenness. Her mind and soul are a gaping wound that would not heal. She yearns for love and goodness. She never lost her innocence, but she is unable to understand that what happened to her is not her fault. She defies all notions of propriety in any way she chooses, except one: she cannot allow herself to become "good". I thought it was fascinating that she alone understands Prince Myshkin and makes her mission to see to it that he is happy. And he, for his part, understands how confused and damaged she is. He refers to her as "mad" and feels deep compassion for her. The love he feels towards her is what King James Version of the Bible calls "charity" in I Corinthians Chapter 13. 

Dostoyevsky is always true to his Christian ideals. His protagonist, who is always an idiot in the eyes of the world, is the author's Christian ideal of a man: innocent, forgiving, always seeing good in his neighbor. In the end, the world rejects this ideal man, just like it refused to accept and chose to crucify instead the one perfect man: the Son of God. Those parallels are clearly there. And in fact, in early drafts, Prince Myshkin was Prince Christov (Christ's). 

This book was entertaining, frustrating, profound, never boring, in many ways surprising, and so very readable. I thoroughly enjoyed it. 5 out of 5 stars - could it be any other rating?

"Hunger" by Roxane Gay

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body is a deeply personal, heart-wrenching and powerful story of a woman whose life has been a perpetual struggle of a kind I never experienced myself. Roxane Gay was raped by a group of boys when she was only 12 years old. She then found solace in food and built around herself a fortress of a 500+ pound body.

This book undid me. I hated listening to it while driving to work and I hated listening to it on my way back home. It filled me with sympathy, pain and depressed me to no end. It also made me feel angry and helpless. Gay is very frank about the reality of her life: about our society's inability to accept people "of a certain size" and our unwillingness to give them opportunities to live with dignity and respect. Before reading this book I never thought about the size of chairs in our public spaces, booths in restaurants, or ill suitability of doctor's offices (out of all places) to accommodate obese bodies. This is to say nothing of the cruelty she has to endure from complete strangers who feel they are at liberty to call her names, stare and offer unsolicited advice.

Gay describes the way that initial childhood trauma affected her romantic relationships, her sense of self-worth, her ability to connect with others, her family life, and pretty much every other aspect of her existence. This book was painful to consume, but it provided me with a perspective I would not have otherwise had. I can honestly say that for me there is a "before I read Hunger by Roxane Gay" and "after". This book is exactly why I read. It gives me the ability to see the world through the eyes of someone whose reality has been so unlike my own. This is a must read for everyone. I gave it 5 out 5 stars, which is an immeasurably inadequate way to describe how I feel about this book.