Batuman

So I pushed through to the end of Elif Batuman's The Possessed. The simple fact that I did so is, of course, a vote of confidence in the book. In many ways, its strengths and weaknesses are one and the same. In chapters on Lazhechnikov's The Ice House and the historical incident it was based on (an actual ice house created in the mid 1700s by the somewhat crazed Empress Anna Ioanovna, in which she forced a couple of members of her court to marry and spend their wedding night, just cuz) and on her studies of Uzbek literature in a summer in Samarkand, she sometimes overindulges in digression and detail.

But then again, it is Batuman's tremendous enthusiasm, curiosity and stamina in ingesting texts and experience which allow her to have some pretty unique and deep thoughts. Sadly, I can't synopsize them quickly. The idea of doing so reminds of the story of when someone asked either Wittgenstein or Tolstoi what their book was about, and whoever it was responded by saying that the only way they could answer the question was to read the book aloud from the start. So there.

In many ways, the book testifies to the enduring power of scholarship and experience, when channeled through a pen of talent. Natalie espied a copy of Batuman's second book, The Idiot, in the little free library out by the lake (let the record show that having one there was my idea). I went and snagged it, replacing it with a Henning Mankell novel that I once read most of a second time by accident. I won't be repeating that mistake.