Interestingly before I started reading The Idiot, I read that Batuman came out later in life, now identifying as queer, and that Selin shares a lot of the same characteristics as closeted Batuman, bound by comp-het. As someone who realised they liked women by 12 or 13 but only came out as a lesbian at 26, I hungrily looked for these points of reference and they are there. Selin wants validation from men because she feels it’s what she should want. She looks at a man and recognises that he’s attractive only because her friends tell her so. She and her female friend attend a gay pride parade and she describes her hand as feeling ‘bereft’ when Svetlana lets go of it. I never got the sense that she actually cared about Ivan romantically, only that she felt she *should* care.

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Hidden queerness aside, The Idiot was an intriguing read. I was very aware while I was reading that it could very easily tip into desperately dull, and it did lose a bit of steam towards the middle, but once Selin ended up in Hungary I was once again hooked. The dry, self-deprecating humour that runs through this book was much needed and provided a touch of lightness. Batuman pokes fun at academia, I loved the first part where Selin arrives at Harvard and everything is just so constructed, everyone living in their own little bubble which has nothing to do with real life. Then when Selin sets off to teach English in a tiny Hungarian village in the second half, you get that distinct impression of being in your early 20s (actually she is 19 so late teens) that life is happening to you, rather than you experiencing life. Selin is more concerned with wryly observing what’s happening to her rather than living it fully - like she’s at a distance from her own life.

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Not a book I’d recommend to everybody, but if you know your tastes and know you like a plotless novel with lots of meandering self-introspection, then give The Idiot a go!