Questions About Call Me By Your Name (Call Me By Your Name, #1)
by
André Aciman (Goodreads Author)
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Answered Questions (87)
This question contains spoilers...
(view spoiler)[Why did Oliver get married? Wasn't he still in love with Elio? (hide spoiler)]
Deborah Yaffe
I think the explanation for Oliver's choice is deliberately left ambiguous, because the story stays so intensely in Elio's point of view. Perhaps Oliv…moreI think the explanation for Oliver's choice is deliberately left ambiguous, because the story stays so intensely in Elio's point of view. Perhaps Oliver is bisexual; perhaps he thinks a more conventional life will be easier or better for his career; perhaps he wants children; perhaps he doesn't have the courage to try to live at the pitch of intensity that he and Elio have sustained during their weeks together; perhaps, as Alex suggests below, he doesn't think that intensity could be sustained and would rather affirmatively choose to surrender it at its peak than see it wither over time.
What I think the (incredibly beautiful and sad) final pages of the book suggest is that he and Elio have both come to see what could only be understood in retrospect: that what they had was unique, irreplaceable, unrepeatable. But at the same time, they've also come to see that this is true of much that happens to us: every choice means a road not taken in a parallel life. Every life is like the Basilica of San Clemente, in which each new structure is built on the ruins of what came before. We are who we are in part because of what we've lost. (OK, now I'm going to start crying again. . .)
Loved this book.(less)
What I think the (incredibly beautiful and sad) final pages of the book suggest is that he and Elio have both come to see what could only be understood in retrospect: that what they had was unique, irreplaceable, unrepeatable. But at the same time, they've also come to see that this is true of much that happens to us: every choice means a road not taken in a parallel life. Every life is like the Basilica of San Clemente, in which each new structure is built on the ruins of what came before. We are who we are in part because of what we've lost. (OK, now I'm going to start crying again. . .)
Loved this book.(less)
Alex
He said: "I could never stand my own. But this is yours." He was showing Elio that he wanted even the parts of him that could be considered dirty and …moreHe said: "I could never stand my own. But this is yours." He was showing Elio that he wanted even the parts of him that could be considered dirty and sick. He made no distinction between them and the rest.
Apart from that, it's an allusion to the title and how Aciman descibes desire: that you become your lover and he becomes you, that you don't really know if you want to have him or be him. (less)
Apart from that, it's an allusion to the title and how Aciman descibes desire: that you become your lover and he becomes you, that you don't really know if you want to have him or be him. (less)
This question contains spoilers...
(view spoiler)[I found Elio to be a reliable, raw, and honest narrator until the end. He said that during the blank years other lovers had eclipsed Oliver. And yet, we learned nothing of those lovers or of his life really, after Oliver. It was clear to me by his emotions towards meeting Oliver's family and their last meeting, that Oliver was always "the one". Did anyone else feel the same? (hide spoiler)]
Tom Osborne
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)[It's a great question and I was somewhat confused over this issue the first time I read the book (back in December 2016). Elio now had had all these other important people in his life so that years seemed to go by in which he didn't even think of Oliver at all, so I had a vague thread going on in my head, "Why are you even going back to see him?" This didn't make me think this questionable piece was a flaw, I just kind of skipped over it in my mind, since the only relationship of his that I cared about was his with Oliver.
I also confess that I hadn't liked the third chapter, "The San Clemente Syndrome", mainly because I had wanted it to be an intense "Elio and Oliver" time the way I would have wanted it to be if it were myself, just the two them together, exploring Rome and making lots and lots of love. Instead, it was all this party and book reading and dinner and drinking and being with tons of other people all night long until daylight. I could have just ripped that chapter out entirely and felt that the book wouldn't have been hurt very much.
What really affected me was the final chapter, "Ghost Spots", which tore me apart. So much nostalgia, just reaching back to that one summer 20 years ago! (Well, my own life is likewise filled with nostalgia and it kills me yet I would die without it.) Even after I finished the book, for a month afterwards, I would read the last five pages of the book every night. That was the final seeing of Oliver by Elio in the book. But finally I moved on and put the book on a shelf in my home library and involved my mind and feelings into other things.
However, the MOVIE that I had been waiting for arrived in Los Angeles at Thanksgiving this year (2017) and of course I went to see it. It affected me very much. When I got home from the theater, stunned by the movie, I pulled the book off the shelf and was going to read again the last five pages, but instead, read again that whole final chapter. And it made me break down and really cry. I hadn't cried when I first read the book, but the movie generated tears, yet it was the final chapter in the book, read again now, that really opened up the flood gates. (Well, I know myself, so I wasn't surprised, but very, very happy over this.)
I knew then that I had to read the whole book again, cover to cover, and also see the movie for a second time. Reading the book again, it was as if I hadn't actually read it before, in that this time there seemed to be so much more in it than I had ever gotten out of the first time. And that third chapter, "The San Clemente Syndrome", was crucial to understanding the full power of the book. And this chapter also answers the question of the true role of Oliver in Elio's life and of Elio in Oliver's life. Well, Andre Aciman must have named that crucial third chapter "The San Clemente Syndrome" for a reason.
So what was the San Clemente Syndrome, anyway. Well, to take a concept from the poet, there was the moral and there was the take. The moral was all about the timelessness of the Basilica of San Clemente, which originally had been built as a refuge for persecuted Christians. Perhaps the concept for Elio and Oliver would be Rome, and their experience there, presented a refuge for them as gay lovers. They were completely comfortable to be themselves deeply in their love and fully free to express it, even in public.
The Basilica had been burned down during Nero's time, and upon the charred ruins was built a temple to Mithras, the God of the Morning, the Light of the World. I had been kind of fascinated by the two names, Elio and Oliver, and also Oliver's idea that they should call each other by the other's name, which Elio absolutely wanted to continue between themselves forever, which indicates at the core of their being, those two are the same, or intimately united. I was pleased to see that every letter in Elio's name is in Oliver's name (the only excess letters are V and R), or another way of looking at it, their names could be connected together with a central "O" like this: ELIOLIVER. Do those names have an actual meaning? I remembered how Oliver corrected Elio's father about the derivation of the word "apricot", that Elio's father said came from the Arabic, but Oliver showed that it had come by way of the Greek. Oliver comes from olive (that's the masculine name, the feminine name is Olivia), and how important are olives to the experience of Italy, and Elio is the Italian word for the element "Helium", but the name Helium also comes from the Greek, "Helios", which is the God of the Sun. So I am pretty sure that when the family or Oliver said the name Elio, they weren't thinking of the element Helium, but they were thinking of the Sun. How extremely important the sun was throughout the whole experience of Elio and Oliver together that summer on the Italian Riviera.
So after San Clemente had been a refuge, in its second rebuilt state, it became a temple to the God of Morning and what signifies the morning is the rising of the Sun, so this in a way means that this is a temple to Elio's namesake (and to Oliver when when Elio calls him by his name).
Then there was another burning and a rebuilding and the poet went on to explain that "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"; so even for "Jews of Discretion" like Elio and Oliver, there was a space for them in there among all the layers and secrets and chambers and timelessness.
The tale associated with all this was the story of the person of beauty and desire that had entranced the poet that was either male or female or both or neither. There was no thought of "dissolute" or age differences or different languages and geographies; love transcended all. And Elio and Oliver ended their night singing over and over again in three or four different languages a very ancient Neapolitan song of sorrow (sorrows exist because of joys) about a young man passing his beloved's window only to be told that nobody is there anymore--"She always wept because she slept alone, Now she sleeps among the dead". Where did Elio tell Oliver his "ghost spot" was? "I wanted to tell him the the pool, the garden, the house, the tennis court, the orle of paradise, the whole place, would always be his ghost spot. Instead, I pointed upstairs to the French windows of his room. Your eyes are forever there, I wanted to say, trapped in the sheer curtains, staring out from my bedroom upstairs where no one sleeps these days"--Oliver's "ghost spot".
It makes no difference who all came before or after in Elio's and Oliver's life. People and their meanings, including even wives and children, would come and go as time moved on, but the edifice of love and intimacy that Elio and Oliver had built was like the temple of San Clemente. You may not see it now on their surface, they age and then rebuild themselves for ever newer purposes, but if you excavate, you will come upon their timelessness.
It makes me think of Sir Issac Newton, who said, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." No matter where Elio and Oliver are now and wherever they go in their future, they are where they are because they stood on the shoulders of their giant love. (hide spoiler)]
I also confess that I hadn't liked the third chapter, "The San Clemente Syndrome", mainly because I had wanted it to be an intense "Elio and Oliver" time the way I would have wanted it to be if it were myself, just the two them together, exploring Rome and making lots and lots of love. Instead, it was all this party and book reading and dinner and drinking and being with tons of other people all night long until daylight. I could have just ripped that chapter out entirely and felt that the book wouldn't have been hurt very much.
What really affected me was the final chapter, "Ghost Spots", which tore me apart. So much nostalgia, just reaching back to that one summer 20 years ago! (Well, my own life is likewise filled with nostalgia and it kills me yet I would die without it.) Even after I finished the book, for a month afterwards, I would read the last five pages of the book every night. That was the final seeing of Oliver by Elio in the book. But finally I moved on and put the book on a shelf in my home library and involved my mind and feelings into other things.
However, the MOVIE that I had been waiting for arrived in Los Angeles at Thanksgiving this year (2017) and of course I went to see it. It affected me very much. When I got home from the theater, stunned by the movie, I pulled the book off the shelf and was going to read again the last five pages, but instead, read again that whole final chapter. And it made me break down and really cry. I hadn't cried when I first read the book, but the movie generated tears, yet it was the final chapter in the book, read again now, that really opened up the flood gates. (Well, I know myself, so I wasn't surprised, but very, very happy over this.)
I knew then that I had to read the whole book again, cover to cover, and also see the movie for a second time. Reading the book again, it was as if I hadn't actually read it before, in that this time there seemed to be so much more in it than I had ever gotten out of the first time. And that third chapter, "The San Clemente Syndrome", was crucial to understanding the full power of the book. And this chapter also answers the question of the true role of Oliver in Elio's life and of Elio in Oliver's life. Well, Andre Aciman must have named that crucial third chapter "The San Clemente Syndrome" for a reason.
So what was the San Clemente Syndrome, anyway. Well, to take a concept from the poet, there was the moral and there was the take. The moral was all about the timelessness of the Basilica of San Clemente, which originally had been built as a refuge for persecuted Christians. Perhaps the concept for Elio and Oliver would be Rome, and their experience there, presented a refuge for them as gay lovers. They were completely comfortable to be themselves deeply in their love and fully free to express it, even in public.
The Basilica had been burned down during Nero's time, and upon the charred ruins was built a temple to Mithras, the God of the Morning, the Light of the World. I had been kind of fascinated by the two names, Elio and Oliver, and also Oliver's idea that they should call each other by the other's name, which Elio absolutely wanted to continue between themselves forever, which indicates at the core of their being, those two are the same, or intimately united. I was pleased to see that every letter in Elio's name is in Oliver's name (the only excess letters are V and R), or another way of looking at it, their names could be connected together with a central "O" like this: ELIOLIVER. Do those names have an actual meaning? I remembered how Oliver corrected Elio's father about the derivation of the word "apricot", that Elio's father said came from the Arabic, but Oliver showed that it had come by way of the Greek. Oliver comes from olive (that's the masculine name, the feminine name is Olivia), and how important are olives to the experience of Italy, and Elio is the Italian word for the element "Helium", but the name Helium also comes from the Greek, "Helios", which is the God of the Sun. So I am pretty sure that when the family or Oliver said the name Elio, they weren't thinking of the element Helium, but they were thinking of the Sun. How extremely important the sun was throughout the whole experience of Elio and Oliver together that summer on the Italian Riviera.
So after San Clemente had been a refuge, in its second rebuilt state, it became a temple to the God of Morning and what signifies the morning is the rising of the Sun, so this in a way means that this is a temple to Elio's namesake (and to Oliver when when Elio calls him by his name).
Then there was another burning and a rebuilding and the poet went on to explain that "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"; so even for "Jews of Discretion" like Elio and Oliver, there was a space for them in there among all the layers and secrets and chambers and timelessness.
The tale associated with all this was the story of the person of beauty and desire that had entranced the poet that was either male or female or both or neither. There was no thought of "dissolute" or age differences or different languages and geographies; love transcended all. And Elio and Oliver ended their night singing over and over again in three or four different languages a very ancient Neapolitan song of sorrow (sorrows exist because of joys) about a young man passing his beloved's window only to be told that nobody is there anymore--"She always wept because she slept alone, Now she sleeps among the dead". Where did Elio tell Oliver his "ghost spot" was? "I wanted to tell him the the pool, the garden, the house, the tennis court, the orle of paradise, the whole place, would always be his ghost spot. Instead, I pointed upstairs to the French windows of his room. Your eyes are forever there, I wanted to say, trapped in the sheer curtains, staring out from my bedroom upstairs where no one sleeps these days"--Oliver's "ghost spot".
It makes no difference who all came before or after in Elio's and Oliver's life. People and their meanings, including even wives and children, would come and go as time moved on, but the edifice of love and intimacy that Elio and Oliver had built was like the temple of San Clemente. You may not see it now on their surface, they age and then rebuild themselves for ever newer purposes, but if you excavate, you will come upon their timelessness.
It makes me think of Sir Issac Newton, who said, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." No matter where Elio and Oliver are now and wherever they go in their future, they are where they are because they stood on the shoulders of their giant love. (hide spoiler)]
This question contains spoilers...
(view spoiler)[I have my own interpretation of 'cor cordium', but how would you interpret what Oliver said when he told Elio 'Cor cordium, heart of hearts, I've never said anything truer in my life to anyone.'? What's the story about Shelley and his wife Mary and the heart? (hide spoiler)]
Monica
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)[I think the story goes, as described in the book, that in the final moments before Shelley's body was burned on his funeral pyre, his friends rushed to remove his heart. From what I understand, the story then goes that they gave his wife Mary the heart and she carried it with her for the rest of her life. Because even after their story ended his heart stayed with her. In a way, I feel that this is one of the many ways Oliver tells Elio, in no uncertain terms, how much he truly loved and will always love him without ever actually saying the words. I always tie it back to the moment before they are intimate for the first time and Oliver expresses that all this is supposed to be fun for Elio (maybe because he's young and inexperienced still) but it feels different for him (maybe because he sees what he truly wants in Elio) and after everything is said and done, he doesn't want Elio to ever say he "didn't know". This again is the first of many ways Oliver tells him he loves him and I felt that "cor cordium" was Oliver's way of saying that he loved him then, he still loves him, and despite the fear that their story will someday end, he will carry his love for Elio with him the rest of his life. (hide spoiler)]
This question contains spoilers...
(view spoiler)[Why did Elio feel regret and remorse after sleeping with Oliver? He wanted him away and he didn't want to see him. Of course that changes but I was curious as if that was because he loved Oliver and then he realised that the sex was not what he just wanted (hide spoiler)]
Joel Sink
I took it in a very personal way... the first time I had sex with another guy, I was overwhelmed with emotions... embarrassment, regret, fear. For me …moreI took it in a very personal way... the first time I had sex with another guy, I was overwhelmed with emotions... embarrassment, regret, fear. For me it was 1982. I knew I was gay, I knew I wanted to have sex with him, but the wave of emotions was almost unbearable. As a gay man coming of age in that time period you had to make peace with what you wanted and how that would affect your life. Your parents, friends... future. There were no real role models at the time so it was very scary to step out on that ledge and say “yes, I’m gay... I have sex with men”. Elio was from an educated, liberal family but a 17 year old is still going to do the work to make peace with it.(less)
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