REVIEW: The Idiot by Elie Batuman

 

I have heard that people like this novel, but having completed it, I'm not sure that I do.  It seems to be a long, pointless novel that jumps from one scene to another in a very jerking manner.  In this novel, we meet Selin, a freshman at Harvard. The year is 1995 - so the internet, email and the like are completely new. Selin begins corresponding via email with Ivan, a senior Mathematics major that is Hungarian and trying to decide where to go to graduate school. When Ivan goes home for the summer, Selin follows - as Ivan is the VERY bland love interest of the novel. 

The characters are flat and lifeless - I could care less about all of them, including Selin and especially Ivan.  I didn't have any connection with them. At all. Communication between the characters is very, very tense and anxious - meaning that it seems like all the characters have social anxiety of some degree as opposed to building the tension to lead up to a certain moment where it all comes together.  In this novel, it never really comes together in that way. What I did appreciate is that the novel attempted to explore what teenagers seem to do - test opinions and actions to see what they and who they really are. THe novel did that very, very well through Selin, who in those moments was earnest and introspective.  Through Selin, Batuman tries to offer us an exploration of the complexity of language and technology - sometimes it does that and sometimes it falls flat on its face. The most important lesson that I learned from reading this novel was that I prefer plot driven novels with well developed characters.

Hard pass.