Only Batuman would send a character in search of new clothes and have her think, “what was ‘Cinderella,’ if not an allegory for the fundamental unhappiness of shoe shopping?”

Image Elif Batuman Credit... Beowulf Sheehan

Selin notes the “death roar” of an institutional toilet. She observes how, lighting a cigarette, “when the flame came into contact with the paper, it made a sound like the needle coming down on a record player.”

Small pleasures will have to sustain you over the long haul of this novel. “The Idiot” builds little narrative or emotional force. It is like a beautiful neon sign made without a plug. No glow is cast.

We’re told why Selin falls for Ivan. He gives good email. He is also, as one of her friends puts it, “a seven-foot-tall Hungarian guy who stares at everyone like he’s trying to see through their souls.” He’s Ivan the enfant terrible.

Selin tells us about the force of her longing. “Every sound, every syllable that reached me,” she says, “I wanted to filter through his consciousness.” But we never feel this longing in our bones.

I’m reminded of the acting coach’s dictum that it’s not important that the actor cry; it’s important that the audience does. After 100 pages, I was done with Ivan and wanted Selin to be done, too. I wished, as if she were an avatar in a video game, to point her in a different direction.

Selin is not done with him. The summer after her freshman year, she travels to the Hungarian countryside to teach English and perhaps to see him on weekends. She consumes a lot of food with sour cream in it. She judges a contest to see which students have the best legs. She frets.