American author (1977- )
There is something very affirming about the idea that the narrative is the big thing, and it is not clear if it is good or bad, or if it is moving in a good or bad direction. It's just moving. You have to draw meaning from the whole.
ELIF BATUMAN
"Elif Batuman on Fictionalizing Her Life and Learning to Fact Check", LitHub, March 21, 2017
What was "Cinderella", if not an allegory for the fundamental unhappiness of shoe shopping?
ELIF BATUMAN
The Idiot
Real intimacy is a place where there are no mistakes, at least not in the sense you feel. You don't just blow everything with one wrong move.
ELIF BATUMAN
The Possessed
I had wanted to write The Possessed as fiction, but everyone told me that no one would read a novel about graduate students. It seems almost uncivilized to tell someone writing a novel, "No, you have to call this a memoir."
ELIF BATUMAN
"Elif Batuman on Fictionalizing Her Life and Learning to Fact Check", LitHub, March 21, 2017
Each work of criticism is supposed to build on the body of work, to increase the total sum of human understanding. It's not like filling your house with more and more beautiful wicker baskets. It's supposed to be cumulative.
ELIF BATUMAN
The Possessed
It's so hard to be sincere without sounding pretentious.... I mean, what are you supposed to do if you really happen to feel like you've swallowed the universe? Not say so?
ELIF BATUMAN
The Idiot
Suddenly it occurred to me that maybe the point of writing wasn't just to record something past but also to prolong the present, like in One Thousand and One Nights, to stretch out the time until the next thing happened.
ELIF BATUMAN
The Idiot
I thought: racism is over, sexism is over, bigotry is over. I was in for a rude awakening. It's like a nightmare ... Trump is someone who was around when I was that age, we heard about him all the time. When my uncle came to America we took him to see Trump Tower. I'm middle-aged now, and he's my president? I mean, how is that possible?
ELIF BATUMAN
The Guardian, May 26, 2017
I told him my theory. Most people, the minute they met you, were sizing you up for some competition for resources.
ELIF BATUMAN
The Idiot
If I could start over today, I would choose literature again. If the answers exist in the world or in the universe, I still think that's where we're going to find them.
ELIF BATUMAN
The Possessed
A few times I saw a chicken walking around importantly, like some kind of a regional manager.
ELIF BATUMAN
The Possessed
When you invent something, you’re drawing on reservoirs of knowledge that you already have. It’s only when you’re faithful to the truth that something can come to you from the outside.
ELIF BATUMAN
interview, The Rumpus, Apr. 25, 2012
When you’re reading a novel, I think the reason you care about how any given plot turns out is that you take it as a data point in the big story of how the world works. Does such-and-such a kind of guy get the girl in the end? Does adultery ever bring happiness? How do winners become winners?
ELIF BATUMAN
interview, The Rumpus, Apr. 25, 2012
An amazing sight, someone you're infatuated with trying to fish something out of a jeans pocket.
ELIF BATUMAN
The Idiot
It was hard to feel cheerful when someone kept telling you you were a little fish in a big sea.
ELIF BATUMAN
The Idiot
I think any start has to be a false start because really there's no way to start. You just have to force yourself to sit down and turn off the quality censor. And you have to keep the censor off, or you start second-guessing every other sentence. Sometimes the suspicion of a possible false start comes through, and you have to suppress it to keep writing. But it gets more persistent. And the moment you know it's really a false start is when you start ... it's hard to put into words.
ELIF BATUMAN
The Paris Review, winter 2012