The Idiot

Are you looking for a fast-paced entertainment powered by an ensemble of rapidly recognizable characters, who converge across spectacular plot developments to win a decisive victory with everything at stake? If it’s been that sort of a day, then I recommend Roland Emmerich’s 1996 adventure/sci-fi motion picture, “Independence Day”--no judgement. Other times, like if you are considering a 432-page novel, then you might be looking for richness of experience, depth of insight, and vividness of detail, more so than pure plot elements. It’s a satisfying feeling, for me, to finish a long read and feel like you really got to know a character or a certain time and place--and that these are meaningful, unpredictable persons and interactions that grow your world, in proportion to their divergence from the polished creations of a powerful Hollywood production team.But, if you are not that into the world of a given story, then it is even less fun to engross yourself in the deepest dimensions of that experience. So why not check out the excerpt posted on newyorker.com as "Constructed Worlds" and decide for yourself? For me, the main selling points for this book are its engaging detail, literary smarts, and uninterrupted humor, as it memorably recreates the experience of a young woman working out the kind of adult person she will be, during her first year of college. Underlying the story, it is a pretty sophisticated novel technically, in some ways mirroring _In Search of Lost Time_. But, it is way shorter than a Proust volume, and it uses entertaining and witty descriptions to keep the flow running along while accomplishing similar goals to recreate a time and place. (It brings a smile to my face when one of the art professors keeps losing it over the degree of artifice--“Artifice!”--in art.)I think the unpopular aspects of the book might all be different manifestations of a single uncommon (at least in popular heroic literature) feature of the protagonist: at 18 years old she is intelligent and independent but not savvy in life--she doesn’t get the point of many trivial and non-trivial human conventions, but she is determined to do things her own way even as she is figuring out what that way is. So, even though she does not suffer from a neurological condition or an addiction of some sort, she almost never makes the most strategic decision for social positioning or peace of mind; the character (and reader) are definitely not showered by a parade of progressively extravagant victories and rewards based on her winning ways. Instead, the main character is stuck on a lot of intractable questions about linguistics and literature, or semiotics and life itself, and from the start it is pretty unlikely that she will ever have sex with her crush. So for instance, I was really frustrated when she kept creeping on some math class when she was not even a math major because she hoped it would help her understand some math guy’s world and his cryptic emails. But at the same time, have I never done something similar? (It takes some thought because as a manly guy I have censored many acts of awkwardness from my memory.)Overall, I think almost everyone will get something from the book, between the humor and the high general quality of writing. For sure some people will enjoy this book more than others, most obviously those with an interest in literature and linguistics, bildungsromans, or life as a college freshman, and maybe those who live or are interested in the life of a woman in our historical era. But at the most general, I think that to gain the most from this story you will have to find patience and kindness for doubt and uncertainty; to cultivate empathy for ineptitude, charity for self-discovery, and sympathy for the pursuit of digression, exploration, and marginalia.I will now argue conceptually that the more resistant you are to this mindset, the more you share a common mentality with widely-reviled U.S. president Donald Trump, even (especially?) if you yourself hate Trump. (Honestly I hate Trumpism so much that I am comprehensively fearful that I will become like Trump, because in my experience that’s how it always works out with persistent enmity, yuck.) And, I will argue that the more books like this our society can produce, the weaker Trumpism will be--both by cause, in that a world without Trump is one where this kind of book will flourish; and by effect, in that Trumpism and its shameless generalizations will wither away in the face of this kind of patience, kindness, and charity for honest personal stories.First, a natural question: in our catastrophic age of constitutional crisis and military brinkmanship, with important questions of civil liberty and economic policy hanging in the balance, how can it be that the most powerful kind of story for restoring our culture is exemplified by some girl figuring things out in college in the 90s? First of all, consider who else is very likely not only to push this question forward, but also to immediately answer it in an eruption of self-important misinformed bombast ridiculing the characters, the author, girls, college, and figuring things out? Trump; obviously he will never show vulnerability or recount a story about a time when he didn’t understand something or didn’t know what to do, because he has never made a mistake and his life is in fact an uninterrupted parade of winning bigly.Then, why not start a tweet storm, or hack Trump’s web page, or write a bestselling non-fiction book destroying his ideology, or punch a white nationalist on the streets of D.C.--why create a book of fiction with a pink cover that has a rock on it? The way I see it, you may be distinguishable from Trump by your ideas and the informedness of your bluster but when you argue with Trump and his fools, even if you take exactly the opposite position on every single issue, you are participating in the same system of editorialization and prioritization that trivializes marginal experiences and reestablishes the context of our dominant social discourse as one of strict focus on political policy and legal structures, on crisis and violence—no space for the issue of how I as an individual should live my life, but all about the actions of great and terrible leaders who run our world. Like, editors and pundits and bestselling authorities on authoritarianism can warn, “Visa Suspensions a Racially-Motivated Threat to Constitution” in response to an executive order but overall they are legitimizing the overall discourse with artificial gravity by treating it as valid question for rapid reaction and discussion; instead the most natural and appropriate prima facie attitude is really awe and bewilderment, like “Muslim ban WTF,” and then determined resistance. If you stripped this book down to the “important business” according to the editorial boards and the markets and to disengaged spectators demanding casual entertainment (all three are insatiable Trump profiteers and critical enablers) there would be nothing left at all; and that in itself is a repudiation of not just Trumpism but also anti-Trumpism and the horse they rode in on.Some people get mad because the protagonist of this story keeps obsessing and going into detail about her mistakes, and failing to get what she wants. But do you know who is super decisive and can instantly understand any issue at an executive level, even for subjects where the so-called experts called him an ignoramus, and then he gets the right answer every time? I’m not even going to say because ugh you can only complain about a disgusting wretch so much before eventually sounding like the wretch—my own life strategy is to heal myself of wretchedness by processing this book and others like it into my mental world. (If you found some parts slow I am sorry for comparing you to Trump, I think it is only reasonable to have some differences in interest--overall though I am trying to argue that the work to get through the less engaging, or the infuriating parts, is work well spent for one's self and for society.) Relatedly in recently revealed lifelong felony, consider also the commercial master of eliminating the unnecessary and the extraneous from a story, of paring down the digressions and marginalia in order to get straight to the action…Harvey “Scissorhands” Weinstein, who incidentally _always_ has sex with his crush. Self-appointed arbiters of significance have no room in their 140-character stories to discuss mistakes or failures, or things they wanted but couldn’t get; they are repulsed by these stories. And a world of justice is not a world about turning the tables and taking power back from the predators, or ruling the rulers, or policing the police and bullying bullies. It is a world of stories where nobody is mastering anything or turning any tables—people are living their lives with dignity and individual resolution, where we have the strength, humility, and empathy to share long personal stories of bewilderment, doubt, and self-defeat.Overall the protagonist of this story is actually the bigger hero, not Trump or the guy who conquers Trump in a debate or a duel—she doesn’t even want to be the thing that Trump pretends to be. Selin is determined to live her life a certain way even if it kills her, and she does, and it doesn’t even kill her, it just generates a lot of painful or awkward situations that the author wrote up and now we have an opportunity to benefit from this trajectory. In my own experience the greatest heroes are not the ones who go crazy on some special inspired day and win a decisive confrontation with some villains to the acclaim and panting admiration of all--those are the dreams of douches and little boys. The heroes I have known are doggedly persisting in their individual and small-scale goals, in defiance of what institutionally important people prescribe as winning, and it is they who will move the world.In conclusion the author is pioneering a distinctive form of story that admits all sorts of digression and personal starts and stops at the expense of thrilling plot. But it is smartly and vividly observed, and very funny, and in fact it is this kind of extraneous content that is the secret to defeating some of the most hateful things in the world without becoming hateful yourself.

I kept waiting for a plot, and got none, but the story still moved along at a good pace and had numerous hilarious, laugh-out-loud moments. The protagonist is Selin, a freshman at Harvard who is on a path to discover her reason for being. She’s smart, but a bit odd, with humorous and interesting takes on almost everything. She falls in love with a senior student from Hungary called Ivan whom she communicates with via email. The novel follows Selin through her first year and then over the next summer as she takes a job as a children’s English teacher in the Hungarian countryside. There are so many quirky characters introduced that I stopped trying to remember them all and ended up enjoying the book as more of a stream of consciousness piece.

I'm not sure what to say about this book. I should have liked it more than I did. My issues with it were more personal preference than the fault of the author.SYNOPSISThe story opens with Selin, a Turkish-American girl, moving into her dorm the fall of her freshman year at Harvard and closes at the end of the summer right before she begins her sophomore year. During that time a lot happens, yet nothing happens.Selin makes some friends and goes to class (some of which is recounted for the reader, making me think her major is terribly boring and Harvard has a lot of freshmen level classes designed for people who will never need to find a real job and /or earn an actual income).Also importantly, Selin develops a crush on a boy who gives gives her some seriously mixed signals. She is so inexperienced with boys that there is no way she could have a relationship, even a semi- relationship, with a boy that would not be the definition of awkward. The book never says why she is so inexperienced; I was not sure if she is just very unattractive or so caught up in academia that she never noticed boys. It's hard to imagine a girl who grew up in America (in a typical suburban setting) and made it all the way through high school only being kissed once. I'm sure it happens that way for some people, but I don't know any of those people.Selin ends up spending the summer teaching English as a volunteer in Hungary and the book closes at the end of her trip when she returns to Boston.WHAT I LOVEDThis book was beautifully written and captures the angst of a young woman on her own for the first time, trying to figure out what she wants, who she wants to be and what is happening in the world around her.It captures the naivety and awkwardness a first crush. Selins crush felt very authentic and kind of annoying (remember listening to a friend go on and on about a boy she liked with whom she never had the nerve to speak???). Selin simultaneously wanted something to happened, yet was terrified that something would happen.I really liked Selin and Svetlana's relationship. Svetlana added the spunk and interest the book needed. In fact, I think a book about Svetlana would have been more up my alley.I liked how Selin was so smart in so many ways, yet so clueless in other ways. Some of her thoughts and observations were very insightful and others were downright hilarious.During Selin's time in Hungary, her interactions with Rozsa were entertaining. Also the way people there were so open with their opinions was funny. For example; Rozsa was well aware that people found her to be an annoying know it all; she knew this, told Selin about it very matter of factly, yet didn't really care enough to make any changes in her personality which would have made her more fun to be around.WHAT I DIDN'T LOVEReally nothing happened. The story can, more or less, be recounted in about 5 sentences yet it's 424 pages long. The remaining 434 1/2 pages are mostly filled with inconsequential details. About 20 pages of the book were relegated to a direct quotes and summaries of a book Selin was required to read for her Russian class. And it wasn't a particularly interesting story. Several pages were dedicated to detailed descriptions of her language analysis classes. How it that make it into the book?? Zzz...Selin lived inside her head so much it got annoying. She over thought almost everything which made her riddled with indecision and rendered her helpless and unable to act (mostly in relation to her crush but in other ways as well). Also, I have very little patience for people pining over unrequited crushes or wasting time on people who are either unavailable or are inappropriate choices for them. I know, not very generous of me, but seriously??? There are other fish in the sea, get a net and cast it!!!Why do all the characters in 'thinky' books go to schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton etc. Can't there be any intellectual people at schools like Michigan State or SMU? Just saying.The ending was a bit disappointing. I don't want to say to much and spoil it, but I kind of couldn't believe I read the whole darn thing that was how it ended?!?OVERALLAlthough it wasn't my ideal book, I am willing to be that a lot of people would love it.