Reviews
I posseduti. Storie di grandi romanzieri russi e dei loro lettori, by Elif Batuman, Eva Kampmann
wshier's review against another edition
1.0
Awful! i-want-my-money-back terrible. Should have been titled "My boring summer in Uzbekistan: How to game the academic grant system"
librarian_lisa_22's review against another edition
2.0
It started strong and evinced an intense longing in me to be reading War and Peace again. She really captures the earnest seriousness and fervor of the Russian authors I love. But her divergence into Uzbek authors and then her Stanford experience lost me completely.
dbjorlin's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars. I'm mesmerized by Batuman's writing but find long stretches of her stories a bit too inscrutable/self-referential.
chauf's review against another edition
3.0
I expected more from this book than the author had to offer. Parts of it are very funny and probably typical for the life of a graduate student. Other parts of the books reminded me of fellow students who spend their time spitting out the names of famous literary theorists and critics and expect to be applauded by everybody who hears them.
annirox16's review against another edition
may come back — just not super into it rn!!
meredithw20's review against another edition
3.0
Ahahahahahahahaha you guys this book was delightful. I didn't even care about picking through the weedier sections, because Elif frames the seemingly stultifying pursuit of this, uh, singular field of study with personal narrative and colorful supporting characters. I especially like that she writes with a curiously Wodehousian voice, rife with that sort of head-cocked, long-suffering hyperspecificity. I read lots of those moments aloud to my very patient boyfriend.
You know, I find myself sometimes wishing that I read more literary analysis, needing somehow to dissect rather than consume (and, tbh, high-school minted Nabokov-obsessed Meredith enjoyed some baby Russophile validation), but honestly, that's like saying, "I find myself wishing that I ate more dark leafy greens, to reconnect to the bodily satisfaction of absorbing vitamins!" When I'm plowing through DCPL, though, it's all, "Bring on the memoir! Bring on the giggles! Hide my kale in a fruitbomb smoothie!" ...I could definitely taste the vitamins in The Possessed (I swam, glassy-eyed, through the Samarkand section), but I slurped it all up happily anyhow.
You know, I find myself sometimes wishing that I read more literary analysis, needing somehow to dissect rather than consume (and, tbh, high-school minted Nabokov-obsessed Meredith enjoyed some baby Russophile validation), but honestly, that's like saying, "I find myself wishing that I ate more dark leafy greens, to reconnect to the bodily satisfaction of absorbing vitamins!" When I'm plowing through DCPL, though, it's all, "Bring on the memoir! Bring on the giggles! Hide my kale in a fruitbomb smoothie!" ...I could definitely taste the vitamins in The Possessed (I swam, glassy-eyed, through the Samarkand section), but I slurped it all up happily anyhow.