How I Became Stupid

Ignorance is bliss, or so hopes Antoine, the lead character in Martin Page's stinging satire, How I Became Stupid'a modern day Candide with a Darwin Award-like sensibility. A twenty-five-year-old Aramaic scholar, Antoine has had it with being brilliant and deeply self-aware in today's culture. So tortured is he by the depth of his perception and understanding of himself and the world around him that he vows to denounce his intelligence by any means necessary-in order to become 'stupid? enough to be a happy, functioning member of society. What follows is a dark and hilarious odyssey as Antoine tries everything from alcoholism to stock-trading in order to lighten the burden of his brain on his soul.

Ignorance is bliss, or so hopes Antoine, the lead character in Martin Page's stinging satire, How I Became Stupid—a modern day Candide with a Darwin Award—like sensibility. A twenty-five-year-old Aramaic scholar, Antoine has had it with being brilliant and deeply self-aware in today's culture. So tortured is he by the depth of his perception and understanding of himself and the world around him that he vows to denounce his intelligence by any means necessary—in order to become “stupid” enough to be a happy, functioning member of society. What follows is a dark and hilarious odyssey as Antoine tries everything from alcoholism to stock-trading in order to lighten the burden of his brain on his soul.

Publishers Weekly

Philosophy meets farce in a slim debut novel that follows its hero on a madcap search for an antidote to intellectualism. Antoine, a shy 25-year-old, has determined that his sharp intelligence is the cause of his emotional distress. His first two stabs at numbing his overactive mind-an attempt at alcoholism and an overearnest foray into suicide-end before they begin. Like a modern-day Goldilocks, he finds his "just right" solution in a prescription for Happyzac, which promises him a "simpler, more beautiful" life. As the pills do their work, he decorates with posters of cars and women, plays Monopoly and video games instead of chess, bulks up at the gym and eats at McDonald's. An old acquaintance hires him as a stockbroker, and he accidentally becomes stinking rich. With his newfound wealth, Antoine tries to complete his stupidity spiral by mimicking the consumption habits of his peers. But when his boss shows him that he can also acquire women with money, his drugged-up consciousness starts percolating. With help from Flaubert's letters, a visit from the "premature ghost" of a living pop singer and an exorcism-style intervention by his pre-stupidity friends, Antoine ends up as he predicted-back on the side of intelligence-in Page's smart, playful and critical look at human folly. (Dec.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Martin Page was born in 1975. He is a student of anthropology. This is his first novel.
Adriana Hunter is the English translator of eighteen books. She has been short- listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for the last three years.