Elif Batuman: "Saya suka ide novel mahasiswa yang tertekan menjadi nov...

"Saya suka ide novel mahasiswa yang tertekan menjadi novel kontemporer pacaran! Saya kira apa yang akan saya katakan adalah, kita cenderung menganggap periode sejarah dan sejarah sebagai akhir yang jauh lebih konkret daripada yang mereka lakukan. Seperti, dalam novel Austen, ada banyak alasan - budaya, moral, agama - mengapa karakter tidak berhubungan seks selama pacaran. Mungkin, meskipun alasan-alasan itu sudah kadaluwarsa, secara historis, mereka masih ada dalam arti tertentu."

--- Elif Batuman

Versi Bahasa Inggris

I do like the idea of the novel of repressed college students being a contemporary novel of courtship! I guess what I would say to that is, we tend to think of historical periods and historical mores as ending a lot more concretely than they do. Like, in an Austen novel, there are lots of reasons - cultural, moral, religious - why the characters don't have sex during courtship. Maybe, even though those reasons have kind of expired, historically, they're still around in some sense.