I read Call Me by Your Name for the first time in 2015 and in Turkish. I didn’t want to finish it for many different reasons. Because reading it was like talking with the ghosts of my past; I didn’t want to say goodbye, not yet. And five years later I reread it in English. It was different yet so powerful. And still, I didn’t want to finish it because the ghosts were there; livelier than ever.
I don’t know how many times I stopped to admire Andre Aciman’s sentences and the way he writes about love. And when I regretfully finish it; I felt tired, helpless, and sad but very much alive. I’m sure this is a book that will evoke different feelings in everyone. Whatever those feelings are, I think it will leave a deep mark.
Elio is a brilliant 17-year-old adolescent boy who lives with his family on the Italian Riviera. The well-to-do family has a lovely villa, and they host summer residents in this house in summer. Since Elio’s father is also a professor, literature and philosophy are spoken continuously at home. Essential people from various professions come to dinner. This house is a very active and cultural hub, and of course, it has shaped Elio in so many ways. One summer, Oliver arrives at this villa as a summer guest to write his book. And everything changes with his arrival. Everything.
The power of Call Me By Your Name
I don’t want to talk more about the subject of the book, but while I was reading the story, I heard crickets in the background and even smelled the sea. At times I got excited, in parts surprised and my curiosity started driving me crazy as the book was nearing the end. I dwelled on some sentences for a long time. I also went back to my past and lingered there for a short while. Sometimes I was so upset that I didn’t want to read the next sentence. Sometimes I found myself rushing the pages with a smile on my face.
Long after finishing it, I was still under its spell. I thought hard and long about my parallel lives and long lost loves. And I feel so lucky to experience love; I fell in love with amazing men; I loved them from the top of my head to the tip of my toes. Thanks to them, I was able to understand the beauty of this book. And thanks to Andre Aciman I got to relive some of my memories. Such an excellent author! I hope you’ll read this book and enjoy it as much as I did. Later!
Call Me By Your Name
Andre Aciman’s Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents’ cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. Each is unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, when, during the restless summer weeks, unrelenting currents of obsession, fascination, and desire intensify their passion and test the charged ground between them. Recklessly, the two verge toward the one thing both fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy. It is an instant classic and one of the great love stories of our time.
André Aciman
André Aciman is an Italian-American writer. Born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt, he is currently a distinguished professor at the Graduate Center of City University of New York, where he teaches the history of literary theory and the works of Marcel Proust.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
