This book was recommended to me by a fellow book lover, and I was excited to see that it was a story that perfectly lined up with my life! The main character, Selin, was starting her freshman year of college, and so am I. In this novel, she’s coming to terms with a new chapter of her life, without her parents or a familiar face, just like me. This novel, The Idiot, has been described as a coming-of-age story of a long-form romance between two unlikely characters, but I think the main romance in this story is the character’s love of herself. Selin’s inner voice is much like most people starting college for the first time—she is reserved and unsure about her place in this new dynamic. She is learning how to navigate a new life where you have the opportunity to learn as much as you want to. However, Selin embodies a certainty in what she wants to know about herself and others, a quality I would task each new college student to abide by. Selin taught me the importance of holding true that which you aspire to, and caring about your goals as much as you care about yourself. Selin’s internal dialogue is much like Marianne from Normal People, contemplative and honest, sharp in her views and inquisitive in her observations. This book starts rather slowly, building over the course of 400 pages to encompass the broad characteristics of a love story or rather the beginnings of learning about love. Selin starts a correspondence with a senior in her Russian class, Ivan, only talking with him over email. They go over all aspects of human life, delving into thoughts that they could not share in person. Selin is pulled into this new world of connection in intelligent discussion and wonders if this also means she is falling in love. Author Elif Batuman eloquently establishes a relationship built on the power of anonymity and shows the drawbacks of relationships where words can be perfectly crafted online. Batuman demonstrates the elements of love that happen when one’s image is not fully shown, or rather, when one is only a caricature of a person. Later, when Selin and Ivan start talking in person, Batuman pushes further with this narrative, using the metaphor of a dog with its owner to compare Selin to Ivan. Batuman questions the power dynamics at place in this relationship and goes into the painful elements of what happens when one person loves the other more powerfully. This investigation, which builds slowly over the course of the novel, is intricately woven and beautifully built, lending to a more potent end. The Idiot ends with a note of bittersweet callousness in order to segue into the next book Either/Or. Selin learns much about herself over this novel and after traveling in Europe, but ultimately finds she has also lost a bit of herself by being so completely immersed with Ivan. In her debut novel, Batuman paints a complete and beautiful picture of a character transitioning into a human being through trial and error and all the beautiful complexities of life.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Conn Coll chapter.