54 pages • 1 hour read
Elif BatumanEither/Or
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “The Rest of Fall Semester”
Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary: “October”
October is beautiful at Harvard, and Selin enjoys how the light illuminates its brick buildings. In Russian, they read a short story called “Rudolfio” and then analyze it. Although Selin and most of her classmates focus on characterization, Svetlana’s response is more abstract: She reads the story as a commentary on convention and the institution of marriage. In the chance in literature course, Selin reads an interview with John Cage in which he states that car horns are more interesting to him than traditional music. Cage’s idea that “randomly occurring garbage [is] the greatest art form” strikes her as the kind of comment that only an old, already famous person would make (104).
Juho invites Selin to a weekly dinner for the other students in his fellowship. They discuss their computer science fellowship projects, and Selin is struck by the absurdity of the fact that some of them have worn black robes to the occasion.
Svetlana’s friend Scott invites her to a Halloween party, and she and Selin cannot decide whether or not her costume should be “sexy.” To sexualize oneself seems problematic to both women, but to desexualize oneself strikes them as a kind of “abasement.” They debate the merits of Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva, the two most famous female Russian poets. Although Svetlana prefers Tsvetaeva, which strikes Selin as the “cooler” choice, Selin favors Akhmatova, who she feels a greater kinship with.
Selin’s roommate, Riley, explains how to use a computer program called Unix “Talk,” which allows two users to chat in real time. Selin emails Ivan to see if he will use Talk with her, but his response is typically cryptic: He is not sure “which Selin” he would get. Would it be a sympathetic Selin or a Selin who saw him as the devil, as Svetlana’s mother had apparently characterized him? Stricken, Selin attempts to explain why Svetlana’s mother would have come to such an inaccurate conclusion—even while questioning whether her mother may really be right. She waits for his response. Svetlana, meanwhile, got lice at her Halloween party, which she chose to attend as herself and where she received a vintage hat to wear from another partygoer. She and Selin discuss Ivan while Svetlana applies medicated shampoo, and Selin suddenly asks her if it wouldn’t be easier to date women than men. The two talk about it and decide that the thought of physical relations with a woman beyond kissing makes them “squeamish,” and Svetlana asserts that the thought of physical relations with men beyond kissing is similarly daunting but also exciting.
Selin reads Fear and Trembling, which Kierkegaard apparently wrote the same year that he published Either/Or. Her class debates the “teleological suspension of the ethical” (119), and she finds the religious preoccupation with the creation of categorical sets of rules tedious. Riley adopts a 26-pound cat who defecates on the floor next to his litterbox. Priya tries unsuccessfully to mask the odor with incense. Svetlana tells Selin that Fear and Trembling gave her a nervous breakdown the year before, and when Selin asks Svetlana why she didn’t share this news earlier, Svetlana tells her that she’d been embarrassed. Ivan tries to use Talk to chat with Selin, but Selin misses the requests because she is not online. She emails asking to try again but receives no response.
A few days later, she does hear from Ivan, but their chat is cryptic and difficult to parse. Then, “Ivan” reveals himself to be his ex-girlfriend Zita, whom he has given one of his old email addresses to use. Zita, who has heard of Selin, asks if the two can talk on the phone. Zita is worried about the nature of Selin’s relationship with Ivan and offers to shed some light on his character. On the phone, Zita tells the story of her own difficult relationship with Ivan, who was as sure of his career as a mathematician as she was unsure of her own next steps. Ultimately, Zita went to Thailand to study Buddhism while Ivan struck up a close friendship with Peter (the head of the English language teaching program Selin volunteered for the previous summer). Peter, in turn, introduced Ivan to Eunice. Although Eunice and Ivan were initially just friends, it became clear to both of them that their relationship had the potential to be romantic. Because of this development, Zita and Ivan’s relationship had become confusing, and although Zita (like Selin) had spent time with Ivan the previous summer in Hungary, Ivan and Eunice ultimately had fallen in love. Although it initially pained her, Zita had realized that Eunice and Ivan were better suited as partners than she and Ivan; as a result, Zita and Ivan ended their relationship, and Ivan and Eunice had moved in together. Zita tells Selin that during the whole of the previous year when she and Ivan had been engaged in their confusing half-relationship, he had actually been living with Eunice. Partway through the call, Selin’s mother calls on the other line to tell her daughter that she’s had a double mastectomy and that she has cancer. Because her mother is a physician and Selin is sure that she will be fine, she is much more upset by the news about Ivan.
Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary: “November”
After learning that Ivan neglected over the course of a year to mention that he, in fact, cohabited with his girlfriend, Selin finds herself constantly in tears. She tries to add additional hours to her work schedule at the Ukrainian Center and finds it pleasing the way she can convert so many hours that otherwise would have been filled with crying into money. Selin also distracts herself from her grief with music. Although primarily a listener of classical music, she develops an appreciation for Fiona Apple and the Fugees. She initially finds these artists trite and alienating, but after further analysis, she understands their appeal to her peers.
In tutorial, they read Freud’s Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. The text details a case of Freudian analysis, and the professor encourages the students to analyze it in one of two ways: either as the story of a woman who is, in fact, in love with both her father and another man or as the case of an unreliable narrator (Freud himself) who over-identifies with the man in Dora’s life. There is much in this text that resonates with Selin, and she worries about the relationship between her own grief and her sexuality. She becomes frustrated because she cannot determine whether Freud retains relevance given that many people do not agree with his theories and interpretations. They also read Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams and Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way, each of which she finds puzzling in some regards and compelling in others.
Selin composes and re-composes a series of messages to Ivan. She is not sure what to say to him. After writing a cryptic message that asks if he forgives her, adopting the kind of word games that characterized the bulk of their correspondence during the previous year, she gets flustered by someone entering the room and accidentally hits send. Later, he replies that “of course” he forgives her. She can see from his status that he has returned to Harvard from California and is initially excited to see him. Then she realizes that he must be there to see his girlfriend, not her.
Selin goes home for Thanksgiving. Her mother has had both a double mastectomy and breast implants yet effortlessly prepares a wonderful meal. Selin finds her high school copy of Eugene Onegin and realizes that her first love had been her Russian violin teacher and not Ivan. Selin hadn’t dated anyone in high school, and her mother (who also did not date in high school) had always told Selin how proud she was of her daughter for not caring about boys. At the time, Selin thought she did indeed care deeply about boys, perceiving her complicated emotions as feelings of rejection and loneliness. However, now, Selin reflects that it wasn’t that she didn’t care about boys but that she didn’t realize how she truly felt about the Russian violin teacher. She and her mother attend a Picasso exhibit together, and her mother remarks that she looks unwell. Her mother suggests medication and decides that she will get Selin a referral to a specialist.
Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary: “December”
Fellow classmate Lucas recommends Martin Amis’s The Rachel Papers, and Selin reads it. She finds it slightly troubling and largely unappealing. Lakshmi confirms that the text is somewhat “juvenile” and tells Selin that she did not like it either. Selin notices that its protagonist rejects his love interest because of her large nose and reflects that her mother was once criticized by a romantic partner for having a large nose. Lakshmi and Selin both have large noses, and Selin wonders if this parallel is why they disliked the book.
Selin goes to see a psychiatrist at a teaching hospital in Boston. He is cold and inquisitive, and she takes an immediate dislike to him. When she returns from her appointment, Svetlana tells her that she has finally had sex with her new boyfriend, Matt. Riley has paired off with Lukas. Selin is sure that this trend is only just getting started and that one by one, her friends will all find partners. Her psychiatrist asks her if she thinks that men find her attractive, and she finds his question particularly cruel. After every appointment, she cries on the train. Her mother asks how the appointments are going and suggests Selin ask specifically about medication. Selin hypothesizes that the psychiatrist would have already prescribed it if he felt it was necessary, but when she brings it up, he excitedly agrees. She begins to take a low dose of Zoloft.
Part 2 Analysis
This set of chapters continues to develop the characters of Selin and Svetlana, depicting both their key differences and the strength of their friendship. It also continues to develop the theme of Literary Analysis and Self-Examination as Selin encounters, analyzes, and reflects on a variety of texts. Much of the narration focuses on the aftermath of Selin’s relationship with Ivan and the impact that this fallout has on her emotional and psychological well-being.
In line with the novel’s exploration of identity development in college, Selin and Svetlana’s relationship depicts two young women developing their identities through a friendship that reveals their true selves through contrast with each other. In their Russian class, Selin and Svetlana read a short story called “Rudolfio.” True to her personality, Selin is interested in the complex interpersonal dynamics evident within the story. Svetlana, on the other hand, identifies the way that the story speaks to big-picture ideas about marriage and convention. The two further disagree about which of the two most famous female Russian poets is superior: Selin prefers Anna Akhmatova (with whom she identifies), and Svetlana is drawn to Marina Tsvetaeva (whom Selin thinks is the “cooler” choice). In spite of these differences, the two maintain a close, meaningful friendship. This friendship speaks to Svetlana’s characterization: Although she is a somewhat aloof and emotionally distant intellectual, she cares deeply for her friend and knows her well enough to understand that Selin’s distress about a particular work of literature is ultimately a reflection of Selin’s own tumultuous inner world. Svetlana understands that Selin looks to literature to understand herself and that books are not just dry, objective subjects of analysis for her. In turn, in Selin’s case, this friendship adds depth to her characterization: Selin is an individual who values solitude, is often uncomfortable around people, and connects more with books than with her peers. That she has found a kindred spirit in Svetlana speaks to her ability to forge meaningful connections and to her interest in people with whom she can have good-natured intellectual disagreements. The girls agree in a broad sense on their interest in language and literature but disagree on the finer points of much of what they read.
Part 2 also continues to explore the theme of Education Versus Learning. In class, Selin’s professor extolls the merits of John Cage, a musician who states in an interview that car horns are more interesting to him than traditional music. Selin finds this statement utterly ridiculous and notes sarcastically to herself that only a well-established, already famous musician would argue that “randomly occurring garbage [is] the greatest art form” (104). Selin identifies a distinct hypocrisy in the way that many academics (and students) approach analysis, sensing in the entire interview an element of “the emperor has no clothes.”
There is also an interesting exploration of queer desire in this section, and this inclusion speaks directly to Elif Batuman’s own identity: She came out as queer late in her thirties. Since then, she has written extensively on how reading queer-authored essays and literature helped shape her newfound identification and how it affected her writing. This novel is a work of autobiographical fiction. Accordingly, her choice to include the conversation between Selin and Svetlana, in which Selin wonders if it might be preferable to date women, hints at a self-conscious interest in allowing her fictional alter ego to explore her sexuality outside of the paradigm of heterosexual encounters.
Much of the action in this portion of the text centers on the impact that Selin’s relationship with Ivan continues to have on her mental state and emotional well-being. In the context of Identity, College, and the “Immigrant” Experience, Selin finds herself disoriented and struggling to define who she may be in light of Ivan’s apparent betrayal. Selin continues to contact him via email, and it is in this set of chapters that she accidentally emails his ex-girlfriend Zita, leading to their phone conversation. In this conversation, Zita reveals that Ivan had in fact been living with another ex-girlfriend, Eunice, during the entirety of the previous year. Selin is crushed to learn that although she had spent the whole year wondering if they were dating, Ivan was actually in a relationship so serious that he and his girlfriend were cohabiting.
This discovery plunges Selin into a state of depression that permeates these chapters. She cries constantly, retreats into her inner world of analysis and self-reflection, and becomes increasingly despondent and distracted. It is because of her unhappy mental state that she, at her mother’s insistence, seeks out the help of a psychiatrist. It is not surprising that she finds the psychiatrist unhelpful. Discussion is not where Selin gains understanding. Sure enough, she learns more about Ivan from comparing his behavior to that of the characters in the various books she reads than she does in therapy. Selin also learns more about herself from books than she does from her psychiatrist, and the disutility of traditional therapy is best observed in her regular, post-appointment weeping sessions on the train home from the teaching hospital where her psychiatrist’s office is located. The psychiatrist does prescribe Zoloft, an antidepressant, and Selin ultimately finds it effective.
This whole portion of the narrative adopts an openness to the representation of mental health conditions that has a destigmatizing effect: Selin experiences a difficult breakup, finds herself mired in a mental health concern, and seeks help. The “answer” to her depression is a mixture of medication and self-analysis (rather than talk therapy). It is important to note that there is never shame attached to any of Selin’s thoughts, behaviors, actions, or treatment plan. This arc is another key feature of engagement with the bildungsroman and the campus novel: Mental health concerns are common in the lives of many university students.
