Ex Libris Kirkland

Buy it from Amazon

First Written 2022
Genre Fiction
Origin US
Publisher Penguin
My Copy library copy
First Read July 15, 2022

Either/Or



Also entering this note made me realize that while I've read Kierkegaard's Either/Or, and Dostoevsky's The Idiot, neither is saved here in ELK. Why?

Noted on July 18, 2022

This is a direct sequel to The Idiot, about which I said that if Batuman didn't name her third book after a Dostoevsky novel I'd be upset. Kierkegaard isn't that far off though! I'll take it.

Noted on July 18, 2022

This struck me as funnier and more delightful than the previous book. I cracked up several times, and generally found the whole thing great. On paper it's the same thing as 'The Idiot' - naive but very smart college student navigates life in the Ivy League, then spends the summer abroad. The college novel, Year Two. For some reason, I was ready for it this time.

Noted on July 18, 2022

What kind of cretins cared more about hammering out a string of inheritance than about discovering universal truths? Historians, that was what kind. They would only be happy when they had translated every miraculous book into a product of its historical moment.

Quoted on July 18, 2022

I had just taken an enormous bite of peanut-butter sandwich, I wasn't like Riley, who always seemed able to leave a meal at any point, regardless of how much she had or hadn't eaten. Pushkin said that was the greatest good fortune: being able to leave the table before the wine was drained from the chalice. Not me; I was eating my sandwich.

Quoted on July 18, 2022

Unsurprisingly, the back of Either/Or didn't say which kind of life was better. All it said was: "Does Kierkegaard mean us to prefer one of the alternatives? Or are we thrown back on the existentialist idea of radical choice?" That had probably been written by a professor. I recognized the professors' characteristic delight at not imparting information.

Quoted on July 18, 2022


Ex Libris Kirkland is a super-self-absorbed reading journal made by Matt Kirkland. Copyright © 2001 - .
Interested in talking about it?
Get in touch. You might also want to check out my other projects or say hello on twitter.