Is The Idiot Worth Reading?
by Elif Batuman
Ada’s Score
Elif Batuman's semi-autobiographical debut novel follows Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, through her first year at Harvard in 1995, as she studies linguistics, falls into an ambiguous correspondence with a Hungarian mathematics student named Ivan, and travels to Hungary to teach English in the villages. The novel is deeply, genuinely funny while simultaneously being a serious inquiry into what language can and cannot communicate, how we construct meaning from incomplete signals, and the particular bewilderment of being young and brilliant in a world that doesn't map onto the books you've read. Batuman writes with an ironic, precise intelligence that rewards attentive readers. It is a campus novel and a love story and a philosophical meditation, all at once.
Spotlight“Selin is one of the great comic heroines of recent fiction. Batuman writes intellectual longing with a precision that's almost unfair.”
Overthinking as a Fine Art
Elif Batuman writes the kind of sentences that make you laugh and then immediately feel a little exposed, like she's been quietly watching you make every catastrophically over-analyzed decision of your twenties. Selin arrives at Harvard, studies linguistics, and proceeds to absolutely not fall in love in the most intellectually rigorous way possible. It is funny, it is tender, and it is one of the most honest portraits of being young and bewildered that I have ever read.
Ada Brief
AI reading intelligence“Selin is one of the great comic heroines of recent fiction. Batuman writes intellectual longing with a precision that's almost unfair.”
Overthinking as a Fine Art
Elif Batuman writes the kind of sentences that make you laugh and then immediately feel a little exposed, like she's been quietly watching you make every catastrophically over-analyzed decision of your twenties. Selin arrives at Harvard, studies linguistics, and proceeds to absolutely not fall in love in the most intellectually rigorous way possible. It is funny, it is tender, and it is one of the most honest portraits of being young and bewildered that I have ever read.
Book Details
- Publisher
- AST
- Published
- January 1, 1969
- Pages
- 432
- Language
- English
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Ada’s Score
4.3
Ada’s editorial score — not an aggregate of reader reviews.
Common Questions About The Idiot
- Is The Idiot worth reading?
- Selin is one of the great comic heroines of recent fiction. Batuman writes intellectual longing with a precision that's almost unfair. Ada rates it 4.3 out of 5.
- How many pages is The Idiot?
- The Idiot is 432 pages long — around 8–9 hours at an average reading pace.
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