The Idiot - Elif Batuman

Date: 2022-07-10
| The professor was talking about the differences between creative
| and academic writing. I kept nodding. I was thinking about the
| structural equivalences between a tissue box and a book: both
| consisted of slips of white paper in a cardboard case; yet—and
| this was ironic—there was very little functional equivalence,
| especially if the book wasn’t yours. These were the kinds of things
| I thought about all the time, even though they were neither pleasant
| nor useful. I had no idea what you were supposed to be thinking about
Chapter: Fall


Date: 2022-07-10
| patronymics
Chapter: Fall


Date: 2022-07-11
| impetuous
Chapter: Fall


Date: 2022-07-11
| this is what the curators are hiding from us,” Ham remarked of
| a bison that had stuffing pouring out of its guts.  Gary laughed
| mirthlessly. “You think it’s really any different at the Whitney
| or the Met? Let me tell you, kid, it’s all blood and guts in the
| back room, in one form or another
Chapter: Fall


Date: 2022-07-11
| The story was ingeniously written, using only the grammar that we had
| learned so far. Because we hadn’t learned the dative case, Ivan’s
| father, instead of handing the letter to Nina, had to say, “There,
| on the table, is a letter.” Because we hadn’t learned the verbs
| of motion, nobody said outright, “Ivan went to Siberia.” Instead,
| Ivan wrote, “When you receive this letter, I will be in Siberia.
Chapter: Fall


Date: 2022-07-11
| Fernanda
Chapter: Fall


Date: 2022-07-12
| Turkish, for example, had a suffix, -miş, that you put on verbs
| to report anything you didn’t witness personally. You were always
| stating your degree of subjectivity. You were always thinking about
| it, every time you opened your mouth
Chapter: Fall


Date: 2022-07-13
| libraries started giving out plastic bags that said A WET BOOK IS
| NOT A DEAD DUCK on the side. These bags were supposed to encourage
| you not to throw out wet books.
Chapter: Fall


Date: 2022-07-13
| amphibrach
Chapter: Fall


Date: 2022-07-13
| Like all the stories I wrote at that time, it was based on an unusual
| atmosphere that had impressed me in real life. I thought that was
| the point of writing stories: to make up a chain of events that
| would somehow account for a certain mood—for how it came about
| and for what it led to
Chapter: Fall