I loved the prose in this book and found it to be, in some ways, one of the most honest renderings of the feelings of attending an elite university I’ve ever read. I felt the book took a turn for the worse when the focus shifted to Selin’s relationship with Ivan. Once Selin is in Hungary and her wonderfully depicted college life ceases it’s essentially just a repetitive, cack-handed and really frustrating love story that goes absolutely nowhere. I ended the book unreasonably upset that so much energy had been expended by all concerned (Selin, Ivan, Batuman as the writer, me as the reader) to no discernable end.
The title of this book immediately made me think of Dostoevsky and that the author must be pretty cocky to invite comparison with it. After reading it, I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with Dostoevsky’s novel about a man who embodies Christian love and the response he evokes in nineteenth century Russian society. Probably the title refers to the protagonist, a naive freshman at Harvard who doesn’t really know anything.
This character is a success as she seems intellectual, clueless, funny and confused in roughly the correct quantities for a Harvard fresher who’s led a sheltered life with her single mother. Her experience of university life is also very well drawn. It mainly consists of going to classes that seem to have little, if any, practical application or purpose, eating in the cafeteria and hanging out with the one family friend she knows who’s also at Harvard. The feel of all this is a weird sort of stressful suspended animation. All the hard work of applying to, and getting into, an Ivy league school has been done. There’s still a reasonable academic workload but also lots of free time. Very few people have that many close friends but everyone has been convinced that this experience is, variously, everything they have been working for up to this point / the best days of their life / the time when they’ll make their friends forever / the beginning of an amazing career of professional success and personal achievement. The fact that, for many people, the Ivy league experience is none of these things is well depicted.
Less successful is the relationship between Selin and Ivan. It all starts out quirkily and innocently enough with some weird flirting over email, when it has just been invented in the 1990s. The levels of social dyslexia and fumbling that follow quickly become intolerably frustrating. It’s true that the prose is always good and can be laugh-out-loud funny, which is rare for me. It’s also true that a lot of the feelings Selin experiences are relatable. However, the sheer monotony of their botched attempts to express their feelings was my lasting impression of the book. Perhaps the turning point is Selin’s trip to Hungary, Ivan’s homeland. Choosing to spend a vacation volunteering in a friend from university’s home country must be as clear an indication of interest as any man has ever received short of a physical assault. For the character of Selin, who is fresher than the sea breeze in terms of any kind of experience, sexual or otherwise, it’s probably the most salacious advance she’s capable of. Ivan, who is older and allegedly has a girlfriend, has absolutely no excuse for his pathetic behaviour. The story drones on through various fumbled emails, phone calls, physical meetings, meals, trips and stays at Ivan’s parent’s house and still absolutely nothing romantic happens at all! ‘What on earth is going on here?’ I found myself asking, but it wasn’t even that the narrative stretched credulity, it was just so boring! Kiss! Fuck! Hold hands! Anything! In the end, there is some sorry excuse for an explanation of the whole debacle, but by that stage I felt like the damage had been done. I don’t even remember the half-baked justifications Ivan and Selin offer each other for their abject failure but I do remember being highly dissatisfied with the book’s ending. My feelings of vexation were probably exacerbated by the fact that Svetlana, a highly amusing college friend of Selin, is in Paris while Selin goes to Hungary and so is cut from the show. I missed her more and more as the Hungarian misadventure dragged on and on.
Someone mentioned to me that they found Batuman’s depiction of Hungarians to be condescending. I also noticed that the book contains the idea that Hungarian people are of Turkic origin, which is apparently controversial for some. It’s true that the Hungarian characters are not very flattering, but nor are the Turkish ones. I also have the feeling that the English classes that Selin gives were more amusing in America than in Hungary but maybe that’s to do with the context of the general deterioration. So, although I doubt the point of the novel was to make an ethnological point, it did spend a lot of time showing how the languages were similar. I suppose it’s justifiable because Selin speaks Turkish and is learning Hungarian, but it was obscure.
If I were the editor I would have suggested an expansion of the Harvard material and a drastic contraction of the Hungary scenes! The early parts of the book did sort of make me want to read the sequel (‘Either / Or’ released May 2022). Surely, as a sophomore, Selin will get it on with someone, hopefully not Ivan, or at least kiss them?! The risk is that it’s just another few hundred pages of tedious, adolescent muddling is currently providing enough of a counter-incentive.
