batuman's aesthetic life
review of "either/or" by elif batuman
Within the last ten pages of Elif Batuman’s Either/Or, a sequel to her fictionalized autobiography The Idiot, the protagonist, Selin, reads yet another book. This one is Henry James’ The Portrait of A Lady. For Selin, it offers wisdom, inspiration, and answers to all of her questions—whether she realizes it or not.
In Either/Or, Selin attempts to heal from her relationship with the emotionally unavailable Ivan, and do some chaotic, but no less determined research into the question, “What [is] the relationship between leaving the country, ruining people, falling in love, and having sex?” Her investigation runs the course of her sophomore year at Harvard, as she thoroughly examines the “aesthetic life” through Kierkegaard’s Either/Or, Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin and Bréton’s Nadja—just to name a few. With each book she reads, just like in The Idiot, Selin is more deeply impacted by the authors’ words. Selin’s observations range from poignant to mistaken, and Batuman’s distinctive voice has a way of rocketing pared-down language from clichés to well-crafted prose.
Either/Or improves greatly upon the methodology of The Idiot. In The Idiot, Selin would see something or hear something normal and distinctly un-literary, and magically connect it to a book she’d read. Now, Selin reads something, and it makes her reflect more deeply about her life. For example, she keeps reading books where the main characters talk about their childhoods, so she reflects on whether or not she should be thinking more deeply about her own, and in doing so we learn about her upbringing. It’s a small change but allows for more reflection about Selin instead of her reading materials.
The improved methodology speaks to a maturing protagonist who is more mentally organized and well-adjusted to college. Now Selin has actual friends and seems capable of learning. The reader can become more invested without worrying that she is doomed, and therefore some of the tension of The Idiot is subverted, for better and for worse. Never fear; she is still a complete idiot about sex.
At one point, Selin thinks, “I wish I could write a book… about Nadja, where I could explain each line, and how it applied in such a specific way to things that had happened in my life.” Batuman often describes something that Selin is thinking about doing with the implication being that Batuman is currently doing whatever it is.
Selin is Batuman in the past, and their relationship is one that is constantly—impossibly—referenced. Either/Or, is that book, the one in which an author parses through the literature that impacted her, pulls out her favorite quotes and rattles off the thoughts she had when she first read them, with some embellishing, obviously. Honestly, it’s a lot less annoying than it sounds, especially if like me, you have a lot of love and mercy for the mindset of a nineteen year-old girl.1
Selin asks another question: is it better to write about your own life, or to make things up? (Kierkegaard says no.) Selin’s pursuit of the answer sends the reader into a paradox of creation because, again, we know Batuman is Selin! The answer to Selin’s question lies in the very book we’re reading, where Elif has a different name and an exacting detail for a grandmother’s house in Ankara. Because of this, the question loses a bit of its punch, because I knew somewhere ‘Selin’ had already come to a decision.
Ultimately, what the reader learns is that a lot of Selin’s problems would be solved if she didn’t read books exclusively written by men. With the first book I was screaming at the page,“Stop thinking about Ivan!” Here, I wish I could shake her by the shoulders and scream, “Stop thinking about Kierkegaard!” This frustration was something I ultimately enjoyed in the first book, and enjoyed even more this time.
Kierkegaard publishes a letter that haunts her, about how a woman can be tricked and discarded. Bréton finds his outspoken female character, Nadja, annoying and makes her go insane at the end. Pushkin’s Tatiana is brave but too honest, and doesn’t follow the “rules” of courting, so she can’t end up with Onegin. Selin sees herself in all of these women who seem perfectly suited to literary flourishing, yet all meet dismal ends.
It’s not until Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady, that Selin finally finds a combination of “annoyance and exhilaration” at his dismissal of his own young female protagonist, Isabel, in the book’s preface. Selin loves Isabel: her combination of charm and character, her confluence of the aesthetic and the ethical. But even James, Isabel’s creator, complains about young women that “insist on mattering.”
Being a young woman is to see yourself reflected in the literature you love, and then to discover, to your horror, that the author is using your likeness as a rebuke. The heroines you love are the product of hatred and distrust, and the romances, triumphs and tragedies are misogynist allegories. According to the literature that Selin loves, “an aesthetic life involved seducing and abandoning young girls, and making them go crazy.” So Selin asks simply, but bluntly “what did you do if you were a young girl?” Batuman’s hilarious and rigorous recreation of this journey is heart-wrenching, hysterical, and revelatory.
Either/Or is about the words that stay with us, if not forever, then for some period of time when they really matter. They could be the “wrong” words from random, unimportant places, like a free newspaper or student-run travel guide, that make us inexplicably hopeful and inspired. They could be the “right” words from famous works of literature, but contain ideas that harm us and make us sad or stupid. To grow up is to parse through these words and decide whether or not we understand them. Selin is flawed, but she is no rebuke, and Batuman’s words will stay with me for the foreseeable future.
If this is not something you have as a reader, may I suggest you try it out? Every girl you ever knew was nineteen and brilliant. I shouldn’t have to explain this. Also, “love and mercy” isn’t supposed to be a Brian Wilson reference, but it just sort of happened that way.