The Idiot

By: Elif Batuman

Narrated by: Elif Batuman

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

A portrait of the artist as a young woman. A novel about not just discovering but inventing oneself.

The year is 1995, and email is new. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. She signs up for classes in subjects she has never heard of, befriends her charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate, Svetlana, and, almost by accident, begins corresponding with Ivan, an older mathematics student from Hungary. Selin may have barely spoken to Ivan, but with each email they exchange, the act of writing seems to take on new and increasingly mysterious meanings.

At the end of the school year, Ivan goes to Budapest for the summer, and Selin heads to the Hungarian countryside, to teach English in a program run by one of Ivan's friends. On the way, she spends two weeks visiting Paris with Svetlana. Selin's summer in Europe does not resonate with anything she has previously heard about the typical experiences of American college students, or indeed of any other kinds of people. For Selin, this is a journey further inside herself: A coming to grips with the ineffable and exhilarating confusion of first love, and with the growing consciousness that she is doomed to become a writer.

With superlative emotional and intellectual sensitivity, mordant wit, and pitch-perfect style, Batuman dramatizes the uncertainty of life on the cusp of adulthood. Her prose is a rare and inimitable combination of tenderness and wisdom; its logic as natural and inscrutable as that of memory itself. The Idiot is a heroic yet self-effacing reckoning with the terror and joy of becoming a person in a world that is as intoxicating as it is disquieting. Batuman's fiction is unguarded against both life's affronts and its beauty - and has at its command the complete range of thinking and feeling which they entail.

Named one the best books of the year by Refinery29, Mashable One, Elle Magazine, The New York Times, Bookpage, Vogue, NPR, Buzzfeed, and The Millions.

©2017 Elif Batuman (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book

Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction

“Easily the funniest book I’ve read this year.” (GQ)

“Masterly funny debut novel...Erudite but never pretentious, The Idiot will make you crave more books by Batuman.” (Sloane Crosley, Vanity Fair)

Journal entries

I enjoyed this in the same way I “enjoyed” Karl Ove Knaussgard’s My Struggle volumes. People are fascinating even if they are smart & boring. The protagonist of this story is very young, very immature and unformed which spoke to me in a specific way. I love Russian literature which I feel she attempted to imitate but failed due to lack of experience and human connection. I will read more of her works, even though I found this rather dull.

A funny introspective work

This is a very coming of age story about a teenage student at Harvard who encounters a cast of interesting people.

Stunning, insightful, hilarious

The flat, seemingly inchoate highly detailed observations of the narrator bring to life autistic experience.

Change of tone abruptly, overall good

Towards the end the narrator changed the tone to a more upbeat to match the characters feelings, it was very badly excited, felt so out of character for them as the previous parts hadn’t that tone at all.

Not your average college novel

Elif Batuman does a fabulous job of narrating her novel in the flat, slightly confused tone that best suits her protagonist. This is a wonderful coming of age story that defies all conventions and, as a result, feels fresh, surprising and laugh out loud funny. Selin's view of the pitfalls of language and love is so odd and yet so true.

Loved it ❤️❤️❤️

I didn’t know what the book was about and I was going on long walks listening to it. The writing is aloof, which I love! It’s kind of separated from the feelings. Gives you breathing space to figure out what’s going on. She talks about being a student at Harvard, her classes, volunteering and eventually falling for a boy and her internal struggle. She cracks open the door to the colorful and bizarre world of an introvert. There’s always something happening around her. And there’s a certain peace and quiet to her voice (both the literary and the reading voice). That peaceful, vulnerable voice is both entertaining for the content, but relaxing. I have another hour of listening left and I’m already dreading that it will end.

Compelling and affecting 'voice'

Loved this, found myself thinking and talking like the narrator even tho little plot, just a year in the life of a very observant, smart fish out of water 19yo

So good.

Insightful, funny, tender and beautifully read by the author. This audiobook is a very special experience. Not to be missed.

Idiot

Some authors should allow others to do their audiobooks. This is one of them. I was an Idiot for using a credit on this audio. Maybe if I read the book, I will enjoy it better. Leave the reading of books to professionals. The monotonous voice did not allow me to finish the book. After Chapter 12, I had to give up!

A rare gem!

Great book and narration. One of the rare examples of literature by the Turkish diaspora.