Hello book royalists!
I am so happy to have read this book! I have so many good feelings and some others not that good. I thought at the beginning that maybe this was the new “BrokeBack Mountain” but actually, it is not… at all like that. This is a more permissive and open kind of a story of two young men, one younger than the other, falling for each other. The infatuation was so deep that you might wonder, how sane and healthy is this?
I added some of my reactions of Goodreads on the review as @silvia_reads made my day with her tweet!
Tech Summary: Read from January 21, 2018, to February 08, 2019.
I could read this novel as a love letter to what could have been “us”. A recollection of the wonderful memories carved in the human flesh. It is outstanding how the author plays with the torturing and powerful “If”. Synesthesia is one of the devices that Aciman plays with and he shows us the amazingness of the human brain as it connects smells, sounds, and words to the events that marked one’s life.
Me reading this right now:
-oh boy!
-uuuhhh girl!
-oh damn!I am grinning on every expression! So passionate, so intimate that makes you put the book down and enjoy the last words of what you just read.
The narration is so passionate, truthful, and relatable. The narration of the summer affairs of the young and fearless. Aciman writes this intoxicating and passionate story that is so intimate that makes you close your eyes and imagine what you just read. He leaves you in your bed staring at the ceiling wondering about life. As the narration moves on, the reader might wonder when all this rambling and all these dreams will stop and move to “reality”. However, Elio is so over his head. He is delusional and incredibly obsessed. He builds this intense and private relationship that melt him away (that melt me away). The simplest interaction makes Elio blow, what he hates is what he loves. He idealizes Oliver and blows over proportion his infatuation. That is exactly what this is… infatuation.
I love his obsession, his descriptions of the big that is driving him crazy. I don’t like his lack or actions but that I think is normal when you don’t know, feel, or understand how reciprocal attraction works… so add to that not know his orientation… haha
The sweet artistic narration of a perfect summer love that forged the lives of two young men. People might say that the movie ended with it had to end, but for me, the book ending was way better. There was no better way to describe that moment, that love, their lives, their desire for each other than through Van Gogh, through literature, which they both loved, and in Italian. The intimacy and passion never faded. Elio’s life and achievements were never specifically mentioned because his life was not his and all that matter for the years was Oliver… because at the end… Oliver’s life was Elio’s and that is all that matter.
“Time makes us sentimental. Perhaps, in the end, it is because of time that we suffer.” ―
I would dare say that this novel walks in a thin line of sickly romance and dangerous obsessions. Romance hid in a sickly and forbidden action of a grown up getting involved with a minor, but I would love to debate that, how this mutual interaction, mutual agreement, was based in pure passion and love that lasted for years. Might have not been harmless but it was not violent. The beautiful illusion of the summer love in Italy was portrayed so perfectly in this novel, that I would love, once again, to plan a trip to an Italian beach.
“If I could have him like this in my dreams every night of my life, I’d stake my entire life on dreams and be done with the rest.” ―
So, the kingdom has given this book:
It seems that your majesty is pleased and the knights have spoken!
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