1. I don’t like this Idiot.
It’s not fair to judge a book before you’ve finished reading it, but that’s exactly what I’m doing. I am approximately 50 pages from the end of Elif Batuman’s novel The Idiot. I don’t know the exact number of pages because I’m currently peeved at the book and don’t want to look at the fucking thing, but I think it’s around 50. I will pick it up again, maybe tomorrow, and hopefully finish those 50 or so pages. I write “hopefully” because, 1. I aim for at least 50 pages of reading a day in an effort to resist the seductive lure of Netflix, and 2. I really want to be done with this book.
A heavy rock, indeed
I don’t remember who recommended The Idiot. I know it was a female acquaintance. I state this not to make some assholish proclamation about male v. female tastes in literature, but it does seem as though The Idiot may appeal to a reader who has had romantic longings for a young man who acts like a douche. Sadly, lots of women can relate. Me? Not so much. Likely I’ve been the douche, which is maybe why I’ve gotten this far into The Idiot even if I’m not loving the novel. Maybe a reader like me (a dude) should take something else from this book, use it as a chance to reflect. (How have I been a douche? Guys, let’s do this together.)
To be damn sure, I’m enjoying a lot of things in this book, not the least of which is the writing. Batuman can put a sentence together, oh yeah. The story, for all that does not happen, is propulsive enough. I read a Goodreads review (I know, bad idea) that compared the lack-of-story to Knausgaard’s work. I can’t justify that comparison. Both writers seem obsessed with the quotidian, sure, but their styles are very different. Nevertheless, the prose exhibits a pleasant ease. But I’m still irked by the eventless contents.
I’m not the sort of prick who demands a plot, rising action, high stakes, big consequences, obvious good/bad archetypes. I like experimental books that backburner plot in favor of character or language. But The Idiot isn’t really offering much in the way of extraordinary language, like those modernists Virginia Woolf or James Joyce or their descendant Jeanette Winterson (more on her in a bit). The prose is good, clean, effective, but hardly playful, daring, or exhilarating. And the characters are not really developed. We have the first person account of Selin, but I often feel like what’s happening in her mind is not reflected in her dialogue. Maybe that’s the point? To demonstrate the masks we wear with friends? I don’t know, and I’m not sure I care.
That’s not fair—Selin is more or less a developed character. But what do I know about her? She digresses, as do we all, but her digressions seem to lead to nothing more than observations Batuman places before the reader, asking them to see something deeper that isn’t really there. Sure, it’s interesting the way Selin regards the taste of one beer as being the same as any other; okay, there was something amusing in the rendering of a pointless conversation, some idea about the triviality of small talk. I’m sure those tiny moments delighted readers enough to make this a best seller, not to mention a Pulitzer nominee, but over 400 pages of narrative digressions leading to little more than tiny observations does not a great novel make. What are we to do with this accumulation of the mundane? Is there a grand insight coming?
Of course, there is a focus to The Idiot. If I may be a bit reductive, it’s a book about a girl crushing on a boy. There’s plenty to be mined form that simple idea, and Batuman digs deep, though, again, I’m frustrated by the lack of insight and the annoying manner in which Selin and her would-be beaux “flirt,” especially after so much inaction. If there’s charm in The Idiot, it comes at the beginning. The initial pages are a delight, the first hundred of them close enough to rewarding to make me anticipate something big that fails to arrive. Selin’s freshman view of Harvard, and of her roommates’ foibles, had me giggling. Her early emails to Ivan, the object of her affection, are goofy streams of consciousness that I very much enjoyed. Too bad that Selin and Ivan ruin the fun by meeting in person, for it’s then that his douche bag tendencies are fully realized, as is our narrator’s detached obsession. Yep, that’s how I’m referring to Selin’s feelings for Ivan: detached obsession. She tells us that she’s in love with him, that he is all she can think of, yet there’s rarely anything for the reader to feel—just words that seem disconnected. In short: I don’t believe Selin.
2. What endures and why?
I’ve finished The Idiot. It didn’t do much more than I’d imagined it would while mired at page 375. The last lines are strong, though they feel unearned. Too little has happened, with too much attention paid, to really make the tacked on insight impacting.
But who cares what I think? There are more than enough lauds and praises of The Idiot to make me realize that I’m in the minority. And the last thing I want to do is start a fight over this book, or any, really. Aside from deeper moral or political circumstances (censorship, prudish dismissal, religious zealotry), I’m not inclined to go to the proverbial mat for or against a book. I’m in my interpretive community; you can get all cozy in yours. Let’s chat sometime.
Thankfully, reading The Idiot has made me reflect on what I value in art, and why this book caused me to feel such ambivalence. It’d be easier to simply hate the thing, but I don’t. Thinking about Batuman’s novel for the better part of a week has been frustrating and, strangely, energizing. It’s given me plenty to do while walking my dog. I can’t sum up my thoughts on the book in a tidy way, which is ultimately good. Clear-cut art is hardly art that endures. Or, to be more precise, clear-cut art endures, though often the luster fades upon reexamination, though I tend to find more examples in cinema than anywhere else.
Two examples of clear-cut cinematic art can be found in the year 1994: The Shawshank Redemption and Forrest Gump. I like the former film very much. I’ve never been able to get through the latter. But I know enough about each to state that they have obvious heroes and villains, a strict moral center, and time-tested moves that work well on an audience. Who isn’t overjoyed when Tim Robbins breaks free, feels the cleansing rain on him, music swelling to triumphant glory? Similarly, time-tested wheels turn throughout Gump, so much so that the viewer is effectively moved, possibly to tears. These are crafted films that do what the audience wants them to do. While there’s plenty to be said for these sorts of films, they rarely challenge. They’re more interested in pleasing.
And why shouldn’t art be pleasing? Okay, fine, but still… it’s possible to give the reader/viewer/listener something to chew on, something ambiguous or sticky that doesn’t go down as easy as white rice. And Forrest Gump, for all its visual effects, is bland steamed rice.
Two other movies from 1994: Pulp Fiction and Quiz Show. The first is still regarded as one of the finest films of the 20th century, and holds a spot on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 greatest films ever made in this here country. I was very enamored with Pulp Fiction in 1994, but it’s not aged well. For me, at least. Its director has a rabid fan base happy to defend even his lesser efforts, and though they will engage in debate over Inglorious Basterds, admitting that it may have a flaw or two, Pulp Fiction is sacrosanct. Whatever problems I have with Pulp Fiction, at least it’s not a piece of cloying Oscar bait. Its caricatures lean toward characters, some of them with a bit of complexity. And while Travolta’s dislike of having orders barked at him feels like a third act revel added to give the scene with Harvey Keitel some kind of tension (it doesn’t work), Samuel Jackson’s moral searching—in a Mexican standoff, a motif that pops up in Tarantino’s films as often as close-ups of his actress’s feet—at least aims for profundity.
I much prefer Quiz Show, a little film that’s largely forgotten, though it ranks—along with Safe, Naked, Heavenly Creatures, and Death and Maiden—as one my favorite movies of the 1990s. It’s not sensationalistic like Pulp Fiction or sappy like Forrest Gump. No one gets shot. No one gets punished with AIDS for daring to have a sexual appetite. No gangsters, no folksy innocents. And yeah, sure, Rob Morrow’s Dick Godwin is the clear moral center, but even his actions are called into question. And how do we feel about Charles Van Doren, as played by Ralph Fiennes? We like him, sorta. We sympathize, kinda. We’d likely have done the same in his shoes—take the money, deceive the American people. Our feelings for him are hard to pin down. And when Martin Scorsese makes a speech about how little an investigation into corruption will do, how corporations will always win, well. . . we can’t help but believe him. It’s a downer. Lives are ruined, but the rich get away with everything. And yet, as one voice over testimony suggests, people are entertained and the contestants see money they otherwise wouldn’t have, so who’s hurt by the lie?
I’ve returned to Quiz Show often in the last 25 years because the questions raised by the film remain unanswered. I’m not sure how to feel about them, though I can say I LOVE the movie. When I mention it, people at best say, “Oh, yeah, I think I saw that.” No one’s forgotten Forrest Gump. So maybe I’m wrong—maybe clear-cut art endures more than ambiguous moral tales and experimental work. Maybe audiences crave easy experiences and uniformity. After all, McDonald’s isn’t going anywhere. Maybe simplicity sticks around.
I hope not.
3. So what exactly do you like, smartass?
I can’t pan The Idiot, as it has certainly prompted questions. And it’s hardly an empty calorie snack. More importantly, it’s making me articulate what I value in art. At the risk of saying My favorite plotless book is better than yours, allow me to contrast my lukewarm response to The Idiot with my enthusiastic love of The Invented Part.
A lot of proverbial ink (not really, when one compares the attention a translated novel gets to the American MFA sanctioned books that clutter the market) has been spilled over Rodrigo Fresán’s “kaleidoscopic” novel (wonderfully translated by Will Vanderhyden—let us never forget the translators) with a pretty thin story: a writer decides to embrace literary omnipresence by merging with the God particle. That’s about all the “plot” I can remember. And this takes up 500 odd pages. (Emphasis on odd.) Of course, there are digressions, meditations on music that eat up particularly long stretches, many of which I delighted in, considering my love of The Kinks (the song “Big Sky” is name-checked throughout the book) and in spite of my dislike of Pink Floyd.
Also popping up with considerably frequency is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night, a book I’ve never been able to get through, but one I feel deserves my attention now that I have seen how much Fresán’s writer-narrator admires it. Kubrick, Nabokov, Bob Dylan are also discussed at various points, though lest one think this is merely a book without connective tissue or a long list of stuff the writer digs, let it be known that these allusions make a sort of sense within the context of the novel that is impossible to explain here. There are stories with stories, digressions galore, shifting focus from the writer-narrator to his sister and her rather interesting in-laws, though that stops and we get a very long series of ruminations while the narrator is interred in a hospital waiting room, all of this obeying the logic of this novel rather than the structure of the novel. In short: The Invented Part is a wonderfully inimitable accomplishment. My reason for positing that it is a better book (or maybe a book I appreciate more) than The Idiot can be measured by one factor (mine, I admit, and maybe not yours, but hear me out): Fresán’s novel takes risks. Bautman’s doesn’t. Hers is a fine book with a meandering story, one that pleases enough to keep the reader going even as its plotlessness starts to tax patience. But I can’t help compare the book to The Invented Part, having reread Fresán right before Bautman. His is a meandering novel that eschews plot in favor of testing what narrations can do, juggling a fuck-load of balls that are sure to drop any second now. That they don’t—that Fresán keeps them in the air for so long—is astonishing. I felt liberated by the inventiveness and skill evident in The Invented Part. The Idiot feels safe in comparison.
Jeesh! Only an asshole criticizes a book for not being like another book! What am I doing?
Forgive me—I’m really not trying to bash Bautman’s novel, and the praising of a man’s work while criticizing a woman’s is not lost on me, but I just want to explore what I must privilege in art that makes the praise Bautman’s getting so confusing. I don’t have the numbers to back this up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if The Idiot has out sold The Invented Part, or if The Idiot has received more reviews and critical attention. So perhaps I can be forgiven for spending time propping up a novel I like on the back of one I don’t. And I’m really not trying to yuck anyone’s yum so much as start a conversation (with myself, I’m guessing, but send me a message if you’re out there) about what is valued in art, the ways art can push against conventions and create something lasting. I’m trying to define my tastes, which is really hard to do, especially if I dig deep and find the obvious contradictions to everything I’ve written here, those plot-centered conventional novels that click all the boxes and go down smoothly. They’re here in my apartment resting on bookshelves as I write this, whispering “What about me, asshole?”
4. The Sucker.
The above was written some weeks ago and mildly edited this morning well after I finished The Idiot, a book recently donated to a place where it will hopefully find more appreciative readers. I have temporarily stopped the deep dive into my asshole/meditation on what I like and what I don’t and why, though I suspect, break aside, that will be ongoing. Really, this discussion will take up most of the rest of my life or at least the time not spent on trivial matters like earning money and paying bills.
Yesterday I was in a bookshop and saw a copy of Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann, a book that has been receiving some press and a lot of ire from Goodreads readers. I get it. Over 1,000 pages, rambling, few paragraph breaks and fewer full stops. Lists, digressions, aimlessness, or so I gather (I have not yet read beyond page one). It’s a (post?) modernist experiment as much as it is a novel. People are bound to hate it. It’s also the kind of thing I am compelled to support. Without knowing much more than the bare facts, I plopped down $22 and took home the tome. I’d like to think I’ll devote some of my winter break to the novel, though there are plenty of other books on my to-read list, most of them closer to conventional. Still, I need to familiarize myself with the book. I feel it’s my responsibility to attempt to engage with anything this ambitious, as ignoring it—retreating to the “Life’s too short” territory—seems wrong. If I value art that takes risks, how can I not buy/read/promote a thing as risky as Ducks, Newburyport?
Who can resist?
That stated, I am also reading Jeanette Winterson’s FranKissStein, which is certainly ambitious enough, though a quick read. Winterson does things with language that few of her peers can match, yet I wonder if people find it easy to overlook her work for its seeming simplicity? (That she writes often of love is enough to send some readers away.) But thinking of her work, I recall something she said in 2005 when I saw her at a promotional event: “I think it’s bad manners to write long books.” A joke? Maybe. But there’s balance in her work of the elements I’m considering in this (rambling, I know) essay: ambition and daring with a palatable style. Winterson pulled off writing the same book again and again, really. The plot of Gut Symmetries is not terribly different than that of Written on the Body, yet they are very different books. Her themes repeat, but rarely do I feel that she is spinning her wheels. She’s inventive, language focused, unconcerned (or under-concerned) with plot, and her prose moves refreshingly quickly. Might she be my perfect novelist?
No such thing exists.
There are some oh-so-brilliant Goodreads and Amazon reviewers who claim that anyone who buys Ducks, Newburyport is a sucker. To be sure, The Invented Part has its haters as well. So maybe I’m the sucker? Maybe these writers are hucksters and I’m silly for defending them and maligning the better crafters, the Bautmans whose books, while slightly unconventional, adhere more to traditional expectations. Well, fine. I’m the sucker. But what I’m sucking on pleases me. I guess there’s no accounting for taste.