Call me by your name – and I will call you by mine.
I have had lovers call me by pet-names, and vise-versa, but to adopt each others personalities is, although quite common, also a bit controversial. Cannibalistic.
As I have already written in the gay movie thread, I like the book as well as the movie so much, that they are competing with BBM in my appreciation.
Of course the two books are very different in style and lenght. Annie P.’s short story being, as we know, sparse, rough and told in third person, where as CMBYN is (mostly) told in first person, as a memoire by Elio, then 17 now 40ish.
And the story he remembers of his first and never forgotten love, is of course rather introspective and full of wandering teenage feelings and emotions, which I can understand can be tiring. But If you let yourself be 17 again and flow on those emotions the story will eventually grip you as something universal. Or at least it did me.
On an other level, André Aciman’s writing is just as unique as that of A.P.’s, although VERY different. His is almost like poetry – sentences which can be read (and reread) not only for their meaning, but also for their ”sound” or music.
(Sorry to say, I would have preferred Timothée C. to have read the audio book, as it is Elio’s story, and T has a more musical voice than Armie H., I find).
Finally, to me the book is foremost about memory.
Memories of things that has changed one's life, things which, although maybe cut short, will never be forgotten.
