What an incredible novel! Aciman is, perhaps not surprisingly, a leading Proust scholar, and the book is very much in search of lost time or, to use another translation of Proust's, a remembrance of things past. I include both translations because each says something different, and I think both apply to Aciman's novel, which gives to its readers the most eloquent, most evocative, most literate narrator I've met in quite some time.

On the surface, the story is simple: a summer love bet...more What an incredible novel! Aciman is, perhaps not surprisingly, a leading Proust scholar, and the book is very much in search of lost time or, to use another translation of Proust's, a remembrance of things past. I include both translations because each says something different, and I think both apply to Aciman's novel, which gives to its readers the most eloquent, most evocative, most literate narrator I've met in quite some time.

On the surface, the story is simple: a summer love between an American graduate student and a young Italian man, doomed to fail as all summer loves are. Yet the novel itself is more about the memory of the love affair, and even more pointedly about the remembering of it, than it is about the love affair itself.

As may be expected of a Proustian scholar, Aciman writes a novel that studies the mind more than the events. CALL ME BY YOUR NAME is quite possibly the most introspective, most studying, most percolating novel I've yet read, and what luck that it's about an obsessive love affair! (I hate the word 'obsessive,' due to its negative 'stalkerish' connotations, but I cannot think of another word that describes the sort of all-encompassing, worshiping, consuming type of love between Oliver and Elio.) Perhaps my true passion for this novel lies in the fact that I, too, spend quite a lot of time thinking about my past loves, and as I read Elio's words, his reactions, his thoughts, I matched them point-for-point to my own words and reactions and thoughts. Aciman has managed to put into words the feelings we experience as we love, which, as anybody who has ever loved before understands, is not an easy task.

I feel as if I haven't said enough about Aciman's style, which is eloquent, graceful, literate, beautiful. This is truly literature, not fiction. High diction, complex syntax, extensive (though not excessive) figurative language. What is truly amazing is that this style, when analyzed outside of the moment of reading, seems overbearing, overdone, overwrought -- just over -- and yet as you read, everything is perfect, nothing should or even could be done in a different way. And that is the mark of a truly great novelist.

I'm rather depressed to find that this is, to date, the only novel of Aciman's, and I wait, rather impatiently, for his next. ( )

Seventeen year old Elio falls in love with his father's summer graduate student assistant, Oliver, while occasionally sleeping with neighbor girl Marzia. Oliver is hot and cold with him by turns, and Elio is left anguished and unable to express his feelings.

At least half the book is taken up with Elio's frustration, and while it brings back memories of being a tongue-tied teen, it gets tedious at times. Finally, three weeks before Oliver is due to leave, the two confess their feelings for each other and the action picks up.

Older teens may have the patience for the slow action. ( )

I'm not a fan of lyrical romances, gay or otherwise , so I wasn't going to like this book no matter what. However, it was the first book for our local glbt book club, so I gave it a try. I hated the constant repetition of scenes, told slightly differently, until you had no idea what was really going on. (Of course, if you're a postmodernist, there's no reality outside the subjective remembering of the moment, which I'm sure is the author's point) Late in the book the lovers get out of the (to me) stifling Italian villa and go to Rome. That was a little more interesting. The best part for me was when they attended an author's reading at a bookstore. The author discussed the archeological layers of a church I actually visited in Rome. However except for providing a justification for the layering of the narrative, I didn't think it had much to do with the rest of the book. ( )

A beautiful love story but not for those looking for a happy ending. Based in Italy and about young love. ( )

Call Me By Your Name tells the story of Oliver and Elio, who tumble into a surprising love affair during a charmed summer in the Italian country side. Elio, a hyper-intellectual 17-year-old, spends the first fifty pages of the novel describing his longing for Oliver, the 24-year-old research assistant who is the family's annual summer house guest. This longing so thoroughly pervaded part I of the book that I nearly quit reading: as realistic as it is for a teenager, 50 pages of it was tough to take, especially in Elio's long, tangled sentences. A dramatic confrontation at the beginning of part II thankfully got the plot moving, but I continued only because of a reluctant desire to find out how the boys' relationship would progress. At this point, the plot still felt like an elaborate rendition of "he loves me, he loves me not" punctuated by impenetrable references to obscure literary and historical figures. These allusions, coupled with Elio's overly philosophical thoughts, often seemed like the author's excuse to scream "look how smart and well-educated I am!" However, 75 or 100 pages from the end, a miracle happened: the book redeemed itself so completely that recalling my criticisms part I and II was an almost impossible task. Saying very much would spoil the book's honest, deeply human ending, so I will only reveal that it was worth waiting for. I dog-eared several passages so I could return and read them later. I can't offer a definitive recommendation for this novel; you'll have to decide for yourself whether 150 pages of mediocrity is worth a deeply rewarding ending. Here is one of my favorite passages to help you choose:

"We'll speak about two young men who found much happiness for a few weeks and lived the remainder of their lives dipping cotton swabs into that bowl of happiness, fearing they'd use it up without daring to drink more than a thimbleful on ritual anniversaries...But what never was still beckons...They can never undo it, never unwrite it, never unlive it, or relive it -- it's just stuck there like a vision of fireflies on a summer field toward evening..." ( )