Name: Linus Rogge's review of Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman
Item: Call Me by Your Name
Rating: 5
Author: Linus Rogge

André Aciman

The film tie-in edition to the already highly acclaimed Luca Guadagnino-directed film of one of the great love stories of our time.

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' cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks' duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.

Call Me by Your Name

The sultry, sensual novel of obsession and desire that inspired the Oscar-winning film.

Iris van der zanden

But to feel nothing so as to not feel anything-what a waste!

Holly

...youth has no shame, shame comes with age.

...smells and sounds I'd grown up with and known every year of my life until then but that had suddenly turned on me and acquired an inflection forever colored by the events of that summer.

Tabea

Perhaps we were friends first and lovers second. But then perhaps this is what lovers are.

macie livesay

“We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything - what a waste!“

Victoria

“God, the way they envied us from across the dinner table that first night in Rome,” he said. “Staring at us, the young, the old, men, women—every single one of them at that dinner table—gaping at us, because we were so happy.

“And on that evening when we grow older still we’ll speak about these two young men as though they were two strangers we met on the train and whom we admire and want to help along. And we’ll want to call it envy, because to call it regret would break our hearts.”

“Perhaps I am not yet ready to speak of them as strangers,” I said.

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think either of us ever will be.”

I stopped for a second. If you remember everything, I wanted to say, and if you are really like me, then before you leave tomorrow, or when you’re just ready to shut the door of the taxi and have already said goodbye to everyone else and there’s not a thing left to say in this life, then, just this once, turn to me, even in jest, or as an afterthought, which would have meant everything to me when we were together, and, as you did back then, look me in the face, hold my gaze, and call me by your name.

You are the only person I’d like to say goodbye to when I die, because only then will this thing I call my life make any sense. And if I should hear that you died, my life as I know it, the me who is speaking with you now, will cease to exist.

If there is pain, nurse it, and if there is a flame, don’t snuff it out, don’t be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we’d want to be forgotten is no better. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything—what a waste!

And what if it came fiercely? What if it came and didn’t let go, a sorrow that had come to stay, and did to me what longing for him had done on those nights when it seemed there was something so essential missing from my life that it might as well have been missing from my body, so that losing him now would be like losing a hand you could spot in every picture of yourself around the house, but without which you couldn’t possibly be you again. You lose it, as you always knew you would, and were even prepared to; but you can’t bring yourself to live with the loss. And hoping not to think of it, like praying not to dream of it, hurts just the same.

I suddenly realized that we were on borrowed time, that time is always borrowed, and that the lending agency exacts its premium precisely when we are least prepared to pay and need to borrow more.

This, I think, is the first time I dared myself to stare back at him. Usually, I’d cast a glance and then look away—look away because I didn’t want to swim in the lovely, clear pool of his eyes unless I’d been invited to—and I never waited long enough to know whether I was even wanted there; look away because I was too scared to stare anyone back; look away because I didn’t want to give anything away; look away because I couldn’t acknowledge how much he mattered.

Now, in the silence of the moment, I stared back, not to defy him, or to show I wasn’t shy any longer, but to surrender, to tell him this is who I am, this is who you are, this is what I want, there is nothing but truth between us now, and where there’s truth there are no barriers, no shifty glances, and if nothing comes of this, let it never be said that either of us was unaware of what might happen. I hadn’t a hope left. And maybe I stared back because there wasn’t a thing to lose now.

I’d never even have the courage to ask such a question.

But what I’d spoken into his pillow revealed to me that, at least for a moment, I’d rehearsed the truth, gotten it out into the open, that I had in fact enjoyed speaking it, and if he happened to pass by at the very moment I was muttering things I wouldn’t have dared speak to my own face in the mirror, I wouldn’t have cared, wouldn’t have minded—let him know, let him see, let him pass judgment too if he wants—just don’t tell the world—even if you’re the world for me right now, even if in your eyes stands a horrified, scornful world. That steely look of yours, Oliver, I’d rather die than face it once I’ve told you.

Wanting to test desire is nothing more than a ruse to get what we want without admitting that we want it

I wanted him gone from our home so as to be done with him.

I wanted him dead too, so that if I couldn’t stop thinking about him and worrying about when would be the next time I’d see him, at least his death would put an end to it. I wanted to kill him myself, even, so as to let him know how much his mere existence had come to bother me.

“. . . i suddenly realized that we were on borrowed time, that time is always borrowed, and that the lending agency exacts its premium precisely when we are least prepared to pay and need to borrow more.”

“. . . i'd do what so many girls did in the movies, take off my shirt, drop my pants, and just stand there, stark-naked, arms hanging down, meaning: this is who i am, this is how i’m made, here, take me, i’m yours.”

“. . . when i let my tongue loose: ‘do i like you, oliver? i worship you.’ there, i’d said it. i wanted the word to startle him and to come like a slap in the face . . .”

“this one is too young still, youth has no shame, shame comes with age.”

“what i meant to say was: i thought you hated me. i was hoping you'd persuade me of the opposite- and you did, for a while. why won't i believe it tomorrow morning?”

Kelsey 

Stephanie 

We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything—what a waste!

And then I said it, not because it was what I wanted to say to him but because the silence was weighing on us, and this was the easiest thing to smuggle in during a pause—and at least I would have said it: I don’t want to lose you.

Rehearse the pain to dull the pain. Homeopathically.

Linus Rogge

The ending saved this, many parts of the book seemed to drawl on for longer than necessary, but that's art I guess!

karla nicole

It was umnessary disgusting sometimes but except from that Its a masterpiece and really poetical

Gwenifer

A Novel

Carmen Malca

The end saved this from getting an even lower rating. The atmosphere was great but I didn’t care for any of the characters besides the father. 

Patrick Book

3.5, maybe. The last third has a lot of heavy lifting to do to make up for the ceaseless ruminating of the first third, but the more I think about that last stretch the more impactful it seems.

Now a Major Motion Picture from Director Luca Guadagnino, Starring Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet, and Written by Three-Time OscarTM Nominee James Ivory The Basis of the Oscar-Winning Best Adapted Screenplay A New York Times Bestseller A USA Today Bestseller A Los Angeles Times Bestseller A Vulture Book Club Pick An Instant Classic and One of the Great Love Stories of Our Time 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. Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Ficition A New York Times Notable Book of the Year • A Publishers Weekly and The Washington Post Best Book of the Year • A New York Magazine "Future Canon" Selection • A Chicago Tribune and Seattle Times (Michael Upchurch's) Favorite Favorite Book of the Year

Gelaine Trinidad

Warning: this book review is extremely biased and borderline fangirl-esque. I love this book, and I love André Aciman's writing. This book has everything I love when reading for the sake of escapism. This is a bittersweet coming of age book about desire, longing, first love, and first heartache. This is also a book that naturally shows the fluidity of gender through Elio's thoughts and actions. It is the perfect book to read as summer is coming to a close; reading this made me dream of peaceful and slow Mediterranean summers.

Again, there is so much tension, longing, and desire in the first part as I immersed myself in Elio's stream of consciousness. I loved all the symbolisms like Oliver's swim shorts and Oliver picking ripe apricots. Aciman has a way with words and plays with the origin of the word "apricot" in a sensual way. Also, one cannot forget another fruit metaphor—the peach scene in both the movie and the book. After reading this, I felt compelled to watch the film version again and look for subtle connections to the book (e.g. the statue they found in the sea in the movie represents a specific part of the book in which Elio feared that Oliver drowned and his lifeless and eyeless body—like the statue— will show up on the shores).

It's hard to put this book down. There was so much push and pull between Elio and Oliver: their indirect forms of communication and hidden truths they insert in their coded conversations in hopes that it'll be understood by the other. There was also a lot to unpack from Elio's fantasies and imaginations. Elio experiences such contrasting emotions in part two such as desire and shame. It is an honest portrayal of someone experiencing love and passion for the first time.

Aciman also loves writing about time and the concept of parallel lives. Elio and Oliver are living in borrowed time. In part three, this theme is explored even further through something called The San Clemente Syndrome: "like the subconscious, like love, like memory, like time itself, like every single one of us, the church is built on the ruins of subsequent restorations, there is no rock bottom, there is no first anything, no last anything, just layers and secret passageways and interlocking chambers, like the Christian Catacombs, and right along these, even a Jewish Catacomb.” I am left even more heartbroken by this next quote: “...how we move through time, how time moves through us, how we change and keep changing and come back to the same. He came. He left. Nothing else has changed. I had not changed. The world hasn’t changed. Yet nothing would be the same. All that remains is dreammaking and strange remembrance.” It makes you wonder, what could have been? Aciman writes with sincere infatuation with nostalgia and moments that may never happen again.

The night spent in Rome with older literature lovers is a very meaningful time for Elio not just because Oliver is there with him but because Elio finds a community he wants to belong to and felt an instant connection with. This is unlike his friends back in B. It’s a good reminder for Elio as he’s growing up—there’s more to life outside his bubble. Although part three had some questionable parts (e.g. the poet's story with a transgender hotel clerk in Bangkok), the night in Rome was for the most part very romantic and intimate.

Elio's father's speech in both the book and the movie is so meaningful; Aciman brings it home with the familiar themes of time, love, and parallel lives in part four. “Time makes us sentimental. Perhaps, in the end, it is because of time that we suffer."

*plays Sufjan Stevens in the background*

I highly recommend this book and the audiobook narrated by Armie Hammer.

The sudden and powerful attraction between a teenage boy and a summer guest at his parents' house on the Italian Riviera has a profund and lasting influence that will mark them both for a lifetime, in a novel of obsession, passion, fear, and desire. By the author of False Papers.

Megan Parrott

One of those books that I wish I could experience for the first time again. It’s intoxicating in the way many coming-of-age love stories can be, but it never felt corny or trite. I loved being inside Elio’s head — especially when his mind would wandered from thought to thought, as he tried to take in everything he felt. For me, this book speaks to how fluid love is, if we allow ourselves to surrender to it.

Update: The audiobook as read by Armie Hammer is my favorite iteration of this story (though I also loved the movie and of course the written work).

Ryan Mateyk

idk what to say but it's SO GOOD everything about cmbyn just so perfect 

gita

The sudden and powerful attraction between a teenage boy and a summer guest at his parents' house on the Italian Riviera has a profund and lasting influence that will mark them both for a lifetime, in a novel of obsession, passion, fear, and desire. By the author of False Papers. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

armoni mayes

After reading this book, i will refer to my life as “before” or “after” reading call me by your name because i am simply destroyed

Anjorin Molayo 

“Perhaps the physical and the metaphorical meanings are clumsy ways of understanding what happens when two beings need, not just to be close together, but to become so totally ductile that each becomes the other. To be who I am because of you. To be who he was because of me.”

I’m still in awe of how beautiful Aciman’s writing style is. this entire story depicted the desperation and the chaos sexual desires can bring. it’s sweet at times and terrifying at times. it's truthful in a raw way. 

“We had found the stars, you and I.”

Although i won’t deny the fact that entering Elio’s head left me disturbed. I still can’t fathom how dirty his mind could go.

And i can’t move past the fact that Oliver was grooming Elio. Yes, Oliver tried to stop the attraction towards each other, but it still felt like what he was doing wasn’t enough.

The final part of this book is just...It broke me to the core😔. 

4.25 ⭐️

Rodrigo Figueiredo Severino

** spoiler alert **
           I have a lot of thoughts about this.

The book is beautifully written. The way the author manages to walk the line between erotic and poetic is stellar and the way he brings Elio’s speech to life is fantastic, giving us a true insight to what his feelings really are.

Now the thing is you’ll have to come into this book with a seriously open mind cuz I was absolutely not expecting the age gap to be this weird, Elio to be this obsessed as a 17 year old with a 24 year old man (that indulges in such behavior), I was not expecting him to wish Oliver was paralyzed just so he could keep him in Italy, for example, and I also wasn’t expecting Oliver to place his hand on Elios stomach while he takes a dump in Rome so he can “feel what he feels”, between other weird parts of this book.

What redeems this book for me, despite the obsessive and unhealthy nature of their relationship for most of it, are two things: the last 40 pages when Oliver leaves and Elio grows up tie the book all together and show that there was real love from both parts instead of just obsession from a 17 year old teen discovering himself, and the last about 20 pages specially are really touching. And second, it’s just relatability. Of course this is taken to an huge extreme, but as someone who has been on a similar situation to what the book depicts (without the weird age gap), a lot of this book felt like direct stabs to my little heart. So the beautiful poetic writing style, the ending that almost makes the rest of the book less weird by acknowledging their growth and how their relationship was real, just mildly inappropriate and too intense for its own good, and the fact I can in hindsight get the messages and relate to the situation in the book leads to my 4 star rating.

muskaan bal

the writing was brilliant but the plot was so mid and boring. this became INSUFFERABLE 😭 and it was anticlimactic. i actually liked the ending and it was the best part.

china alford

𓆨

this made me experience feelings i've never had

Julie Rubens

I honestly just didn’t like this book very much. I thought it was really weird at times and I just wasn’t very invested in either the plot or the characters. 
It definitely wasn’t a bad book, I just didn’t enjoy reading it a lot.

Ryan 

4.5 stars

there were a few small plot holes that comes into mind. but the sensual tone, the flow, the writing, PART 4 (!!), it struck a chord that became endearing and perpetual

Julia Lundberg 

** spoiler alert **
           beautiful ending of an irritating, confusing and pretentious book. 

"I stopped for a second. If you remember everything, I wanted to say, and if you are really like me, then before you leave tomorrow, or when you're just ready to shut the door of the taxi and have already said goodbye to everyone else and there's not a thing left to say in this life, then, just this once, turn to me, even in jest, or as an afterthought, which would have meant everything to me when we were together, and, as you did back then, look me in the face, hold my gaze, and call me by your name." 

an extraordinary way of ending a book, a shame that the rest of the book was awful. 

we can begin talking about that a twenty-four-year old man iniciated a relationship with 
 seventeen-year old boy. you can blame it on the location or the era, i don't care, it's still extremely wierd and off-putting. 

i couldn't relate to the carachters at all. it was annoyingly obvious that it was a sixty-year-old dude that tried to portrait a seventeen-year-old perspective. who reads dante and plays mozart when they are 17? 

if you aren't knowledgable in greek history, this whole book will be a confusing mess for you because i lost interest every time i read a greek name which was like every second page.

i didn't feel like it was a passionate love, it was a obsessive, wierd and intrusive love. 

i think that oliver is cruel, selfish, immature and that he is playing with elios emotions. 

i didn't understand either of elio or oliver. the least elio. he was constantly aware of every step oliver did, and he was jealous and petty. he was constantly asuming thinks about oliver that wasn't true and he was incredibly hypocritical. 

i would also like to mention a very disturbing part of the book where he mentions rape in a very wierd context: 

"the bruised and damaged peach, like a rape victim (HEELLLLLLO?????), lay on its side on my desk shamed, loyal, aching, and confused, struggling no to spill what i'd left inside." 

when we are already mentioning the peach, what is up with that??????????? and the constant mentioning of sex all the time. 

and the fact that a straight man is writing a book of a gay relationship doesn't sit well with me.

azliana aziz

what a journey it is. i am still reeling from the powerful last chapter and the conversation between Elio and his father. 
i am a sobbing mess by the end and i think this is probably the only book that i literally clutched my own hand and heart while reading. 
deeply in love with Aciman's beautiful prose that i keep re reading and making notes of and will keep on going back to remember them probably years later or perhaps tonight, before i go to sleep. 
reading this was all consuming and crushing at the same time but also so beguiling that you can't help to continue although you know when you reach the finishing line that your heart will break to tiny little pieces and i did.

+ re the film adaptation that will be coming our way soon! YEAY!! i know that Timothee Chalamet will do Elio justice and yes my heart will break again and again.

HOW DO YOU EVEN RATE THIS KIND OF BOOK OH MY GOD MY HEART HURTS

Ann Gabrielle

“Or are ‘being’ and ‘having’ thoroughly inaccurate verbs in the twisted skein of desire, where having someone's body to touch and being that someone we're longing to touch are one and the same, just opposite banks on a river that passes from us to them, back to us and over to them again in this perpetual circuit where the chambers of the heart, like the trapdoors of desire, and the wormholes of time, and the false-bottomed drawer we call identity share a beguiling logic according to which the shortest distance between real life and the life unlived, between who we are and what we want, is a twisted staircase…”

—

“I was thinking, instead, of Emily Brontë’s words: because ‘he’s more myself than I am.’”

Inez R

To begin reading before summer and to see that a beautiful poetic book would bring the feeling of summer I’ve longed for years after growing with adulthood. I wish my vocabulary would show just how true that realization is. How fulfilling it was and just how i could, how i will, like these two lovers, remember how this has made me feel for the rest of my life. Truly a wonderful book with queer relationships and absolutely no malice regarding the fact. Im grateful and thankful this is the second book into my queer journey and that this is a placeholder for the longevity of the list i am cultivating.

ayesha 💌

Stephen Campbell

Me reading the first half: This is extraordinary -- a novel which somehow finds new things to say about love and romance. Andre Aciman has crafted a beautiful elegy to raw, aching desire. 

Me, realising: oh no I just relate to a halfway-decent love story because gay.

Linus Rogge &
Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman

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Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman