Hence the title, “The Idiot,” a reference to Fyodor Dostoevsky and the generally clueless behavior of young people everywhere. Selin, the overachieving daughter of Turkish immigrants and Batuman’s alter ego, spent much of that book mooning over Ivan, an older, emotionally unavailable boy in her Russian class. “Either/Or,” by Elif Batuman (Penguin Press)ĭo you remember what it felt like to be a college sophomore? The Jell-O shots, cookie dough and moments of abject humiliation and terror as you tried, oh so self-importantly, to figure out how to live?Įlif Batuman brings back the tedium and exhilaration of undergraduate life in “Either/Or,” a charming, mordantly funny follow-up to her first novel, “The Idiot,” which was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize. This cover image released by Penguin Press shows "Either/Or" by Elif Batuman.
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