美国国家公共电台 NPR--Elif Batuman's sequel 'Either/Or' follows a young woman's sexual awakening

Elif Batuman's sequel 'Either/Or' follows a young woman's sexual awakening¹

Transcript²

Elif Batuman has turned her years in college into another book. Her highly anticipated sequel to the 2017 Pulitzer finalist The Idiot is out on Tuesday – and the lively, witty³, inquisitive⁴ protagonist⁵ Selin is just as curious about "the human condition" as she was in the first novel.

Either/Or picks up where The Idiot left off. Selin is now a sophomore⁶, after having spent the summer trying to understand her obsession⁷ with a boy she followed to Hungary. In Either/Or, Selin continues to muse⁸ about every choice she makes, comparing herself to literary characters and thinking deeply about her identity as a writer.

Selin is also more in touch with her feelings this year, and as Batuman told NPR's Morning Edition, she's learning more about her sexual preferences and trying to better understand the way people live, and the decisions they make.

On seeing herself in the protagonist

I was a seeker, I was looking for the meaning of life and how to live. I was the first person in my family to be born in the United States. My whole family is from Turkey and I did go to Harvard like Selin. I was aware that I had this incredible opportunity and I had to make the most of it. And, that if I didn't, it was going to be this giant dishonor. I also knew that I wanted meaning to come from books and from literature. And even though my parents are doctors, they didn't really pressure me to go into science. So I was really just looking for literature to show me the answers, how to live, and how to create a successful life. And that's also the case for Selin in these books.

On the influence of Russian literature

I fell in love with Russian literature when I was a teenager. When I look back at what really attracted me to books like [Tolstoy's] Anna Karenina and Pushkin's Eugene Onegin – which were two of my big favorites early on – [it was that] Tolstoy and Pushkin really saw what was unfair in life for women and children in a way that no other part of serious discourse⁹ that I could see was talking about. And what I really got from those Russian novels is a potential way that I could take this threatening and menacing chaos¹⁰ of stories, and at least theoretically, reconcile them all into one single story.

On the aesthetic¹¹ versus¹² the ethical¹³ way of life

The Kierkegaard book Either/Or is one that I actually read at that stage of life – in my second year of college. And Kierkegaard is talking about how you can either live your life as a work of art or you can live your life and try to be a good person. And for Kierkegaard, there's a huge conflict between these two things. And his example is that if you want your life to be a work of art, you should go out and seduce¹⁴ lots of women and seduce young girls, and some of them might kill themselves or go crazy. But like, you're living a really aesthetic life. And an ethical life means getting married and being really bored because like a boring marriage in this sophisticated way is actually more interesting than a series of interesting love experiences.

On the protagonist's sexual awakening

When Selin researches how to live an aesthetic life, she's really reading a lot of books that are written by men, and she's learning that the person who lives an aesthetic life is a man, and the way that they do it is by seducing¹⁵ and abandoning young girls. And when I set out to write Either/Or it was in 2017 during the Me Too [movement], when a lot of women were revisiting their own sexual histories. I was, at that point, one year into a lesbian relationship for the first time in my life after only [ever] dating guys. One text that I read at that time was Compulsory¹⁶ Heterosexuality by Adrienne Rich, which blew my mind. It's about the existence of a force that is sometimes secret, and sometimes not secret, that is always working in society to wrench¹⁷ women's energies away from themselves and each other and towards men.

When I thought back about my college experience, part of the question I had was, 'I feel so wonderful in this relationship now with the woman with whom I hope to spend the rest of my life. Why didn't I do this sooner?' And that was part of the motivation for me to write Either/Or, to go back to that period and revisit why that didn't seem like it was an option, and why it seemed so important to have these relationships with guys.

On what the next book might be

I feel like I'm going to run out of time. If I write another book for [Selin's] next year of college, she's [just] going to be a few years out of college by the time I die of old age. So, I think I'm probably going to skip forward to her thirties because I have some ideas about where she's going to end up with that.

1 awakening   

n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的

参考例句：

• the awakening of interest in the environment 对环境产生的兴趣
• People are gradually awakening to their rights. 人们正逐渐意识到自己的权利。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 witty   

adj.机智的，风趣的

参考例句：

• Her witty remarks added a little salt to the conversation.她的妙语使谈话增添了一些风趣。
• He scored a bull's-eye in their argument with that witty retort.在他们的辩论中他那一句机智的反驳击中了要害。

4 inquisitive   

adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的

参考例句：

• Children are usually inquisitive.小孩通常很好问。
• A pat answer is not going to satisfy an inquisitive audience.陈腔烂调的答案不能满足好奇的听众。

5 protagonist   

n.(思想观念的)倡导者；主角，主人公

参考例句：

• The protagonist reforms in the end and avoids his proper punishment.戏剧主角最后改过自新并避免了他应受的惩罚。
• He is the model for the protagonist in the play.剧本中的主人公就是以他为模特儿创作的！

6 sophomore   

n.大学二年级生；adj.第二年的

参考例句：

• He is in his sophomore year.他在读二年级。
• I'm a college sophomore majoring in English.我是一名英语专业的大二学生。

7 obsession   

n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感)

参考例句：

• I was suffering from obsession that my career would be ended.那时的我陷入了我的事业有可能就此终止的困扰当中。
• She would try to forget her obsession with Christopher.她会努力忘记对克里斯托弗的迷恋。

8 muse   

n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感

参考例句：

• His muse had deserted him,and he could no longer write.他已无灵感，不能再写作了。
• Many of the papers muse on the fate of the President.很多报纸都在揣测总统的命运。

9 discourse   

n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述

参考例句：

• We'll discourse on the subject tonight.我们今晚要谈论这个问题。
• He fell into discourse with the customers who were drinking at the counter.他和站在柜台旁的酒客谈了起来。

10 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

11 aesthetic   

adj.美学的，审美的，有美感

参考例句：

• My aesthetic standards are quite different from his.我的审美标准与他的大不相同。
• The professor advanced a new aesthetic theory.那位教授提出了新的美学理论。

12 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

13 ethical   

adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的

参考例句：

• It is necessary to get the youth to have a high ethical concept.必须使青年具有高度的道德观念。
• It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。

14 seduce   

vt.勾引，诱奸，诱惑，引诱

参考例句：

• She has set out to seduce Stephen.她已经开始勾引斯蒂芬了。
• Clever advertising would seduce more people into smoking.巧妙策划的广告会引诱更多的人吸烟。

15 seducing   

诱奸( seduce的现在分词 )； 勾引； 诱使堕落； 使入迷

参考例句：

• He got into trouble for seducing the daughter of a respectable tradesman. 他因为引诱一个有名望的商人的女儿而惹上了麻烦。
• Chao Hsin-mei, you scoundrel, you shameless wretch, seducing a married woman. 赵辛楣，你这混帐东西！无耻家伙！引诱有夫之妇。

16 compulsory   

n.强制的，必修的；规定的，义务的

参考例句：

• Is English a compulsory subject?英语是必修课吗？
• Compulsory schooling ends at sixteen.义务教育至16岁为止。

17 wrench   

v.猛拧；挣脱；使扭伤；n.扳手；痛苦，难受

参考例句：

• He gave a wrench to his ankle when he jumped down.他跳下去的时候扭伤了足踝。
• It was a wrench to leave the old home.离开这个老家非常痛苦。