Either/Or, or How to Assassinate Your Own Protagonist

 I've just finished reading Either/Or, which is part two of what is so far a two-part story by novelist Elif Batuman, in which the protagonist, a young woman named Senin who is now a sophomore at Harvard, continues her often perplexing journey into adulthood. Her crush on Ivan--developed in the course of the first novel of the series, The Idiot--a fourth-year student who is both exceptionally gifted and fairly exceptionally odd, persists into the first part of Either/Or but gradually peters out for lack of interest on Ivan's part, who is now on the opposite coast at Stanford in any case, leaving Senin even more at sea than usual, both emotionally and intellectually. Nothing seems to be making sense. 

Perhaps we all reach this point as young adults, this feeling of being adrift, of seeming unformed but not being sure of how we should be formed. Or perhaps I'm just making excuses for Batuman, who seems as the novel proceeds beyond the halfway point to have allowed the character we had come to know in book one to wander away, to suddenly become who she isn't. Is it Batuman who has lost focus, or is it Senin? I'm not sure. It seems to depend on whether there is a book three to come. Because, frankly, book two needs an explanation. As it is, we have merely witnessed a pointless assassination of the delightful, though somewhat innocent and naive young woman we had come to know in book one. Senin, previously a virgin, begins to engage in casual, one might say careless sexual encounters, which I must say sometimes seem absurd as well. We are told, for example, on two occasions that Senin, meeting with one or another perfect stranger, suddenly finds the man's tongue in her mouth. I mean, not after some talking or kissing or some passage of time, but just while they're still standing on the sidewalk five minutes after meeting. Which strikes me as absurd and unbelievable. Is Senin merely excusing herself, being dishonest, or is this just bad writing? I must prefer the former explanation, because Batuman has otherwise proven herself to be an accomplished practitioner of the language. Nonetheless, it just strikes us as weird and 'un-Senin-like'. 

The end of the novel does seem to be floating in midair, and so I am hoping that this is the lead-in to a third part and a proper finishing of the story this author has started. We'll see.