Book Review: The Idiot by Elif Batuman
The Idiot by Elif Batuman 4⭐ As someone who was for a long time mesmerized by the idea of American college life and had these romanticized ideas of places like Harvard, I was immediately drawn in. But the first hundred pages felt like a systematic disenchantment of that and I struggled to find the appeal for a while. A lot of obscure references and pedantry come up in the text which gave off a mild sense of inaccessibility. I have to laud the author for capturing that feeling of disconnection and anxiety in a young adult in a liminal phase like joining college. It felt very similar to my experience when I joined med school where meeting all these smart and talented people makes you question yourself. The idea of finding everybody else being self-assured and knowing what they are doing while you are still feeling like a fish trying to run was very well embodied by Selin. The author is very convincing about it in the way she makes us want to tell the protagonist to do something whi...
