Elif Batuman joins Christopher and Drew in the Damn Library, and they all imbibe a drink called “The Dissertation” which can smack the words off the tip of your tongue. They discuss Batuman’s The Idiot, and being nicer to your college self, and how you can end up a Dostoyevsky acolyte by accident, almost. They also delve into Swann’s Way, the first volume of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (translated by Lydia Davis) and answer: how is this Paris if there isn’t the Eiffel Tower?

15 seconds of a song: Vampire Weekend – Campus

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