Saturday, November 18, 2017

Review: Call Me by Your Name

Call Me by Your Name Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I hated it. Every moment.

But the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference.

I hated the author's unwavering commitment to love as art. I hated his ability to make these two characters into impossible, yet fully believable and realized characters. Like magic, literature only works if you believe in it, I suppose. I hated those little things that made me pause the audiobook from time to time to whisper, "For goodness sake, get over it, Elio." I hated how the author found ways to avoid melodrama, yet kept me listening to the very end. I hated how Armie Hammer read the novel like he was telling me about his own life, and grabbing me by the shoulders and pulling me in to whisper into my ear.

At times I wondered if the 17-year-old Elio was really a credible character. But then I realized he reminded me of all those friends of mine of whom I was once so dismissive, back in high school. The ones who would talk to me about Proust while I was trying to do derivatives. I wondered, as I read this, do straight people feel as pandered to when they read Jane Eyre as I do right now reading Call Me By Your Name?

I couldn't put it down until I finished it, and like a past romance that on the surface I wish had never happened, I wouldn't change a thing.

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