by André Aciman, 2007
What is André Aciman doing with Elio? Is he a naïve youth exploring different aspects of his feelings and personalities? Or is he a self-deluding narcicist who sees everything the the unreliable lenses of his shifting passions? I suppose he is both, which, for me, makes him a bit difficult to relate to. I want to shake him up and say, come on, you’re a smart kid, intellectual, talented, sensuous, feeling. Why are you wallowing in this overblown romanticism? Either jump the guy or move on, but don’t mope endlessly.
And there’s the problem, I suppose. Elio is a romantic teenager,
exploring his identity and trying to come to terms with his desires, both
emotional and sexual. In his relationship with Marzia, he learns something
about love and willingly sharing his psychic being with another person. In his
relationship with Oliver, he goes farther, and wants to become Oliver when he
says, Call me by your name. Communication is a repeated theme in the novel,
with successful and unsuccessful communications that range from the hinted and unspoken messages
that Elio wants to read in a glance and that extend to to his desire for total
intimacy and shared knowledge. But communication is the last thing that any of
the characters find here when they are so often speaking at cross-purposes and
avoiding what they want to say. And perhaps that’s the point.
Aciman parallels Elio’s two relationships when he joins them
in the gift of the book, Se l’amore, If love. But the relationship
with Marzia is a brief and simple one that Elio quickly abandons. The
relationship with Oliver is complex and layered, which Elio (and I) hoped would
prove to be more lasting. (This is a little ironic, as the European sensibility
is portrayed here as more sophisticated and complex, while the American Oliver
is brash and straightforward.) Aciman also mocks the literature of love in the
pretentions and artifice of the poetry reading in Rome, which Elio sees through
but still enjoys.
But of course, this is a summer love and even Elio knows
that Oliver is leaving at the end of a few weeks. So he ends the summer heartbroken
but wiser for having experienced a deep connection to Oliver. This is so
familiar that it’s a cliché, even if it’s one that a reader can enjoy.
But then, there’s the conversation with Elio’s father, in
which his father hints that he gave up (repressed) his homosexuality and
married, ending up in a distant relationship with his wife. He tells Elio not to
make the same mistake, not that Elio seems likely to. Elio does, however, show
some casual homophobia in his self-loathing after his first sexual experience
with Oliver, when he compares it the next morning with his experience with
Marzia. Since the story seems to be set in about the 1970s or ’80s, that’s
probably common enough for some young men, particular given Elio’s ambivalence.
This adds a sociological line to the story that seems out of tone with the
exaggerated romanticism of the rest of the story.
There’s another layer of complication here. The story is in
the first person, in Elio’s voice, but apparently as a recollection of a
distant past. A contemporary narrator occasionally makes an appearance
reflecting on Elio’s story. And Elio himself re-connects briefly with the
married Oliver later in life, and still finds a bond of unspoken communication.
Is this story the naïve voice of Elio the younger or the mocking voice of Elio
the mature exaggerating the naivety of his youth? In fact, there were several
times, before the appearance of the narrator, where I wondered if this story
was a satire of romantic self-absorbed youth. Perhaps this is how to take the
story of the peach, so sensuous and yet so ridiculous.
So is this an exploration of the formation of the identity
of a young gay man in the 1980s, or is it a satirical reflection on the comical
exaggerations of romantic love? I’ll be interested to read what other readers comment
on the novel.
