The Idiot

Thoughts on Books
Written By Amy Wilson Sheldon

How in the world had I never read this book before now?!?! A campus novel that at its core is about “the relationship between language and the world,” with so many fantastic references to Russian literature, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (the first thing you’d learn in any sort of linguistics or media studies/communications discipline), Noam Chomsky, groups that “[follow] grammatical rules so sophisticated that they couldn’t be programmed into any computer”? And it’s droll and funny too? A novel that's basically about writing and communication: Serve it right up.

I felt like Joyologist Helen Madden aka Molly Shannon as I read The Idiot by Elif Batuman. I love it, I love it, I loooooove it. (Big Fosse-esque kick.)

originally published on instagram

Amy Wilson Sheldon

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