the idiot audio book — 1 thorough investigation

the idiot audio book, narrated by a man with a voice like wet cardboard, played through one airpod while the other ear listened to a fourth-floor drum solo. the bicycle, an object i own and do not ride, watched from the hallway. ignorance, my mother says, is therapy.

writing this from the desk at 9:18, with the window open because the heating in this building negotiates only with itself. carla is upstairs in an annual planning meeting that the calendar invite called “alignment”, which is the word people use when they have nothing aligned. i have, generously, the rest of the morning.

the bicycle, parked in the hallway like a guilty witness, is the second-best object i own and the first-best object i do not use. the kitchen smells of microwave popcorn from a bag i opened wrong. the muted group chat blinked twice and went back to sleep.

1. the idiot audio book, the format

here is the actual situation. dostoevsky wrote a novel called the idiot in the late 1860s, and somebody, generations later, recorded a man reading it out loud for around twenty-six hours. you can find that file on goodreads linked back to whichever audible edition has the most stars that week. there is also a separate novel by elif batuman, also called the idiot, also available as an audiobook, narrated by elif batuman herself, which is either a flex or a hostage situation depending on the chapter.

i started both. i finished neither. this is the official disclosure. the foundational investigation into idiot as a word, a label, and a personal jurisdiction covers the wider terrain; this post is the audio annex.

the format itself, an audiobook, lives in the moral grey zone i refuse to fully resolve. books on tape are cheating, i have said publicly, and i stand by it on weekdays. on weekends i listen to one and call it research. the bicycle remains uncyclined. the kitchen kettle is older than my last lease.

2. nine audiobooks the idiot would queue, in order of disappointment

this is the list. it is not ranked by quality. it is ranked by how badly the audio version specifically let me down, which is a different metric and the only one i trust.

1. the idiot, by fyodor dostoevsky. twenty-six hours. the narrator pronounces “myshkin” four different ways across the same chapter. i checked. i went back. i checked again. the prince is being earnestly stupid in russian and the narrator is being earnestly tired in english. i lasted to chapter three and then put the bicycle in the hallway, which is not related but felt related.

2. the idiot, by elif batuman. narrated by the author. nine and a half hours. the author reads her own sentences with the controlled patience of a person describing a fire to an insurance adjuster. i was halfway through when the muted group chat unmuted itself, which i took as a sign. i remuted it. i did not finish the book. the mention of harvard registration in chapter one made me close the bank app, which i was not even looking at.

3. crime and punishment, also dostoevsky, the long one. queued because the algorithm assumed. the algorithm assumed correctly and i resent it. abandoned at hour four, which is when raskolnikov starts apologizing in his head and i started apologizing for buying the audiobook.

4. the brothers karamazov, the longer long one. thirty-seven hours. i added it to the queue specifically so the bank app would see a person of seriousness. the bank app did not log in. the audiobook did not play. it sits in the queue like a parked bicycle.

5. the elif batuman essays, whichever collection has them. shorter. the author still reads. i made it through two essays and then the seventh microwave beeped, which it does for reasons of its own.

6. notes from underground, also dostoevsky, the short angry one. three hours, which is the length of a flight i am not taking. i listened to the first hour while pretending to do laundry. the underground man and i are in the same emotional postcode. i muted him because he agreed too much.

7. anna karenina, tolstoy, queued by accident. the algorithm thinks russian-novel-haver is a personality. the algorithm is correct and i resent it twice. the audiobook played for nine minutes in the kitchen and then the bicycle made eye contact and i turned it off.

8. moby dick, melville, queued by guilt. the narrator is a man who clearly enjoys his job. i wanted to enjoy mine. i lasted to the part with the inn and then opened the unopened mail pile, which was a worse decision and somehow more compelling.

9. the idiot, dostoevsky, abridged edition, narrated by a different man. the second attempt. four hours. abridged is a word that means somebody decided which suffering you can skip. i listened on a walk i did not take, on a bicycle i did not ride, in a kitchen that does not need walking. did not finish. counted as research anyway.

3. the muted group chat that recommended one

the muted group chat is the chat that recommended audiobook number two. the chat has been muted since february for reasons that were excellent in february and remain excellent now. one of the participants, a person who reads more than is healthy, posted a link to the elif batuman audio edition with the message “you’ll see yourself in this” followed by three skull emojis, which is the modern way of saying “this is going to hurt”.

i opened the link. i did not respond. i did not unmute. i bought the audiobook, listened to two hours, and did not report back. the chat continues without me. the recommendation has been honored by the wallet, which is the only currency these chats actually run on.

this connects, sideways, to the wider study of elif batuman’s idiot, the harvard semester, and the email correspondence that ate the protagonist’s brain. the audio edition adds the author’s voice, which adds intimacy, which adds discomfort. the discomfort is the point. the muted chat is also the point. the bicycle is, separately, also the point.

4. closing pulpit, ignorance is, in this case, financial therapy

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