The Idiot

by Elif Batuman

Such names were unheard of in New Jersey, where everything was called Ridgefield, Glen Ridge, Ridgewood, or Woodbridge.

She saw objects round her and understood everything that was going on, but she could not form opinions about anything and did not know what to talk about.

Every now and then, a book had something like that in it, and it was some comfort. But it wasn’t quite the same thing as having an opinion.

How did all those people know that they wanted to know how to scuba dive?

I kept thinking about the uneven quality of time—the way it was almost always so empty, and then with no warning came a few days that felt so dense and alive and real that it seemed indisputable that that was what life was, that its real nature had finally been revealed. But then time passed and unthinkably grew dead again, and it turned out that that fullness had been an aberration and might never come back.