In this episode, Mandy and Mio discuss The Idiot by Elif Batuman, a semi-autobiographical novel about a young woman's freshman year at Harvard College and the summer she spends in rural Hungary. Set in the mid-90s, the novel relies heavily on Batuman's own college experiences, but it also raises the possibility that the story is being recounted by an older, certainly wiser narrator. Looking back at their own college experiences, Mandy and Mio wonder if one can ever look back without feeling too cynical about the person they used to be.

cw: spoilers

Show notes:

- "Elif Batuman" episode on the Otherppl with Brad Listi podcast

- "Elif Batuman on Fictionalizing Her Life, and Learning to Fact Check" on LitHub

- The Last Days of Disco (1998, dir. Whit Stilman)

- Mio's appearance with Leon Peckson (Part 1 and Part 2) on The Cas Garden podcast

- A tweet on theory from Amy Fallas

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Our theme music: 64 Sundays by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Artist: http://www.twinmusicom.org/