correspondence
and 'the idiot'
i’ve been told that my writing is too metaphorical. therefore, here’s a brief report on my favorite book.
‘the idiot’ by elif batuman is a novel about nothing much at all. it centers an eighteen year old college student, selin, who falls in love with ivan from her russian class. they exchange emails, and selin spends the entire novel overthinking. ivan is in his twenties. he probably wouldn’t care if selin lived or died, but he emails her anyway. back and forth for months. she goes to his home country to understand him. he hangs out with his friends. they never kiss. the end.
i read ‘the idiot’ for the first time when i was fourteen. at the time, i was desperate to believe that longing still counted if it was quiet. the book made a compelling case. no touch, no intimacy, only implication.
throughout the years, i’ve read that novel no less than ten times. as i got closer to selin’s age, i started to understand her absurdity. her roommate could take a shit, and batuman would write a chapter about selin’s opinions on the smell. and yet, the narration began to leak into my inner monologue.
i learned to observe the mundane. i found existentialism in dust bunnies, textbooks, things that i had no business overanalyzing.
i became a writer; “even though i had a deep conviction that i was good at writing, this conviction was independent of my having ever written anything.” - the idiot
and then, just like selin, i fell in love.
i’ve written essays upon essays about this feeling, so if you must understand it, you can read any of my other work.
i will tell you what you need to know now. he was older, he was indifferent, and i found something with a pulse to observe.
i didn’t reread ‘the idiot’ during this time. i was sustained by thinking about every time he spoke to me, looked at me. i didn’t need to study somebody else’s longing while mine was so present.
if i had opened my copy, i would’ve caught it early. i would’ve seen that i had spent years being primed for this exact form of love. i could have seen the signs, the warnings. but, i didn’t.
and then, just like selin, i began communicating with him through email.
i am eighteen. he’s in his twenties. he probably wouldn’t care if i lived or died, but he emails me anyway. back and forth for months.
i read between every line, i shake the emails of their contents just to repackage them how i like. “The important thing was not what was said, but that it was said.” - The Idiot
within these emails, i find proof of thought without proof of care. somehow, that is enough for me. within these emails, he can be kind without being implicated. somehow, that is enough for him.
this archaic medium requires very little of either of us, which might be why it works so well. he can write without decision, i can receive without obligation. the emails arrive regularly enough to suggest continuity, but not so regularly that they imply intention.
i tell myself that this is harmless. after all, nothing is truly happening. but i am eighteen, and he is in his twenties, and the fact that nothing is happening doesn’t mean that nothing is being learned.
what i am learning is not about him. it’s about how easily i accept arrangements that require less of the other person than they do of me. i am learning to make myself smaller inside a structure that cannot hold me. this feels mature.
these emails are not dramatic. if anything, they’re extremely reasonable. they’re the scarcest form of intimacy you can have between two people.
emails arrive. i notice them. i notice when they’re absent. i notice how little effort is required on either side. the presence of words structures my days, but does not change them. i do not know if this counts as attention, care, or love. it may only count as notice. perhaps that is enough.