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Enigma Variations

André Aciman (Goodreads Author)

3.71 · Rating details · 6,663 ratings · 854 reviews

From a youthful infatuation with a cabinet maker in a small Italian fishing village, to a passionate yet sporadic affair with a woman in New York, to an obsession with a man he meets at a tennis court, Enigma Variations charts one man's path through the great loves of his life. Paul's intense desires, losses and longings draw him closer, not to a defined orientation, but t ...more

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Paperback, 266 pages

Published February 21st 2019 by Faber Faber (first published January 3rd 2017)

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Jan 14, 2017 Larry H rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

André Aciman's debut novel, Call Me by Your Name , utterly blew me away. I remember reading and re-reading paragraphs, mesmerized by his poetic language, and at times dissolving into tears from the emotional power of the story. While I could never seem to get into his second novel, and didn't know he wrote a third, when I stumbled on his latest novel, Enigma Variations , I thought I'd give his writing one more try.

This book is staggeringly beautiful. Powerfully emotional, haunting, frank i André Aciman's debut novel, Call Me by Your Name , utterly blew me away. I remember reading and re-reading paragraphs, mesmerized by his poetic language, and at times dissolving into tears from the emotional power of the story. While I could never seem to get into his second novel, and didn't know he wrote a third, when I stumbled on his latest novel, Enigma Variations , I thought I'd give his writing one more try.

This book is staggeringly beautiful. Powerfully emotional, haunting, frank in its sexuality and its romanticism, this is a book about love, infatuation, longing, and lust. It's a book which explores the divide between wanting the familiar and wanting what you do not (or in some cases, cannot) have, and makes you realize that the things you think you cannot live without lose their appeal as soon as you get them. I felt this book in my heart and in my head, and I don't think I'll be able to forget it anytime soon, nor do I want to. I don't doubt this will be among the best books I read this year.

"Perhaps in this, finally, lay the leanest proof of love: the hope, the belief, the conviction that she knew more about me than I did myself, that she, not I, held the key to everything I felt. I didn't need to know anything; she'd be the one to know."

Enigma Variations consists of five novellas, each focusing on a man named Paul at a different time in his life. In "First Love," 22-year-old Paul returns to the Italian island where his family spent summers in his early adolescence. He remembers in particular one summer, when he was 12, and he became obsessed with the village's cabinetmaker, a ruggedly handsome man who seemed to show an interest in Pauly (as he was called back then), and awakened desires in the boy he was never aware of before. When Paul returns to the island he finds while certain things are as he remembered them, certain things are as far from memory as possible, yet he realizes things about that summer that young Pauly would never have understood. And that was the first time he realized the loss we can suffer when we don't say the things we most want to.

In "Spring Fever," Paul is dating a woman, Maud, whom he believes is cheating on him. While he is slightly dismayed by this fact, at the same time he feels freed by it. At a dinner party with friends, where he meets Maud's suspected lover, he discovers that perhaps she isn't the only one with secrets, and he is more of an open book than he thinks. "Manfred" follows Paul as he becomes obsessed with a younger man who plays tennis at the same club he does, and Paul longs for Manfred to recognize him, to see him as a man and not just a person, to desire Paul with the same fervor Paul feels for him.

In "Star Love," Paul is reunited with a college girlfriend, Chloe, with whom he had a fitful yet intense relationship. They seem to meet up every four years in a similar setting, and yet each time they leave one another indelibly changed, yet immobilized from expressing their true feelings, even when both are with other people. And in "Abingdon Square," an older Paul meets a younger writer and starts to wonder if she is his last chance at true happiness, yet he is afraid of rejection and putting his feelings out there.

"When I'm with you, I feel I can take what others call my life and turn its face away from the wall. My entire life faces the wall except when I'm with you. I stare at my life and want to undo every mistake, every deceit, turn a new leaf, turn the table, turn the clock. I want to put a real face on my life, not the drab front I've been wearing since forever."

Aciman's storytelling draws you in, holds you by the heart, and envelops you in the story. I found these novellas so powerful, so beautifully written, and they provoked so many emotions in me. I found the way Aciman and the other characters treated Paul's bisexuality very interesting—in a less-talented author's hands this could have been fodder for melodrama. This is a book about love and the intensity of that love; it is not a book that truly cares about the sex of the people Paul loves.

This is probably not a book for everyone, but it is so bold and poetic, so emotionally rich and exquisite, if it sounds like it might appeal to you, pick it up. Perhaps you'll identify with some of Paul's emotions, or perhaps you'll just understand the enduring power of loving and being loved.

See all of my reviews at http://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blo..., and see my list of the best books I read in 2016 at http://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-best-books-i-read-in-2016.html. ...more

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Jan 20, 2017 Jaidee rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: three-stars-books

2.8 " reluctant, conflicted, disappointing" stars !!

The Most(est) Disappointing Read of 2017 Award

I really struggled with much of this book.

Mr. Aciman is an immensely talented writer but has great difficulty in distillation as well as writing a story that I care very much about. His writing is occasionally profound and moving but more often is overwrought, adolescent, saccharine and at times very dull and/or crass.

The protagonist is one of the most self-centred, miserable, selfish, sonofabitch ...more

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Jan 24, 2017 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: romance, lgbt-themes, fiction, short-stories

I forgot to mention one more thing when I wrote this this morning... PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT LARRY'S review!!! Its wonderful-- and he was my inspiration for reading this!!!

"We make assumptions about how our lives are being charted without knowing that we are making these assumptions--which is the beauty of assumptions: they anchor us without the slightest clue that what we're doing is trusting that nothing changes. We believe that the street we live on will remain the same and bear it's name forev ...more

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Jun 14, 2018 William2 added it · review of another edition

Shelves: us, 21-ce, fiction

My response is decidedly enigmatic. Like Call Me By Your Name, this is a book that cries out for rereading. No stars for now. ...more

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Feb 03, 2018 Kyle rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: literature-fiction, lgbtqia

There was an emotional detachedness to the novel for me. Never once did I feel any sort of deep connection to the protagonist, which left me feeling listless the whole way through. I guess I expected more— something along the lines of the sweeping romanticism and longing of Aciman’s first novel— but expectations and reality didn’t coalesce.

Paul is a frustrating MC. His romantic contradictions and incessant whining threw me off completely. At first, I was bored with him. Part 1 was a grueling tru There was an emotional detachedness to the novel for me. Never once did I feel any sort of deep connection to the protagonist, which left me feeling listless the whole way through. I guess I expected more— something along the lines of the sweeping romanticism and longing of Aciman’s first novel— but expectations and reality didn’t coalesce.

Paul is a frustrating MC. His romantic contradictions and incessant whining threw me off completely. At first, I was bored with him. Part 1 was a grueling trudge of first love (infatuation?). At 12, he thinks it’s the end-all-be-all with Nanni. He pined (and pined some more), and complained and whined when his feelings didn’t turn into how he expected. Older, still, he holds fast to this deep, irrational line of thought. “He’s still feeling himself out, though”, I told myself. So, I let it slide. And then Part 2 was a lesson in patience, because Paul’s irrational paranoia over his girlfriend and her alleged adultery, is just more cause for him to complain and think himself “freed”. His über-pretentious friends and dinner conversations also didn’t help me connect in a positive way. I just wanted these well-to-do New Yorkers to shut the fuck up and be real for once. Part 3 comes along, and Paul has grown into quite the walking contradiction, and fallen so thoroughly for someone else (while he and they are both with someone else). He’s back to longing from afar, and Aciman makes it seem like THIS is the quintessential love of Paul’s life. The story felt like it could be picking up at this point— Our aggravating protagonist has finally settled. That is, until we arrive at Part 4, and all of Paul’s feelings are once more like, “Wait, no, I love this person now. I always have.” It’s too much.

I’ve never been in “love” (let alone multiple times, like Paul). I do fall for many often, and love them each in my own way, but I’m not IN anything. So, I can’t necessarily speak to jumping from one extreme infatuation to the next. And it annoyed me. Aciman made each particular lover sound like the ONE , and that’s just ridiculous to me— falling so madly for one person, and then years later another and another and another. Paul so casually flits from caring so deeply for this man, and then his relationship with this woman is wonderful, but that man over there is surely his soulmate (“oh, and couldn’t she and I have something, too?”) but of course no... after years his TRUE soulmate comes back, and he wants her now, but that can’t last, no. And then times goes until he finds someone else to obsess over. It reminds me of that song by Hozier, ‘Someone New’, the lyrics go: “I fall in love just a little, oh, a little bit every day with someone new.” But in Paul’s case, it’s not remotely a “little bit”. I don’t get it. Maybe I never will.

Part 5 finally slogged in, but by then, I was totally indifferent to the story. Again, Paul’s pretensions put me off. Of course, he’s so very cultured and intelligent, and everyone he meets/falls for, are also the type of people that, in my experience, are vaguely condescending and untouchable on a social level— I doubt I could ever tolerate them for very long (not to say that I’m a moron. No. I think I’m well-educated and quite a bit the polymath, and can hold a conversation as to the ones expressed herein). But everyone in this novel... they’re so very grandiloquent in the sense that they never seem to spend any time with people outside of their posh, ‘la-di-da’ circles.

Paul is searching for himself; to understand— Constantly, in fact, until well past his quarter-life. But here’s the thing: he’s a fucking douche about it. Paul’s a cheater, plain and simple, and he doesn’t seem to have any qualms with infidelity or cuckolding. And he uses his bisexuality to excuse himself (although, never explicitly) and his lifelong self-discovery. He gives the ‘B’ in LGBTQ+ a bad name. The little “twist” (if you want to call it that) at the very end, surprised me, but infuriated me. It made me hate Paul more than I already had.

I didn’t find much to say in a positive regard to this book, but what little good there was came again from how, when you least expect it, André Aciman perfectly captures the crucial, seemingly-insignificant little moments in a life. Whether it be longing to hold a hand, or touch another’s cheek, or the ways in which we wait and regret and break our own hearts... he can really spin feelings to pull you in. I was caught off guard a few times with how well he writes.

I shouldn’t compare this novel to Aciman’s other work, but where I appreciated the isolation and dreamy slowness of Call Me By Your Name, in which the love felt self-contained in a bubble of hazy romanticism, Enigma Variations took that and made a mockery of it. Where Call Me By Your Name’s pseudo-pretensions felt unaffected and appropriate, Enigma Variations’ came off gaudy and superficial, and in the end, so did the “love”. ...more

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Dec 29, 2016 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read2016, reviewcopy, ebooks, short-stories

This book blew me away, in a way I was not expecting. It is told in five vignettes/stories, all which took unexpected turns. But these were not shocking story twists that would get old, but surprising moves by characters that ended up feeling more realistic than most writing. The characters get to be complicated. Sexuality is not black and white, nor is fidelity or even hope. There are statements about the longevity of love and connection, the realities of how some people only work in the short- ...more

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Feb 27, 2018 Jessica Sullivan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-stars, literary-fiction

“I live for this. And if this is all there is, well, this is all there is.”

No one understands and communicates the myriad desires and agonies of the human heart quite like Andre Aciman. This series of five connected stories follows the life and loves of a bisexual man named Paul from adolescence to middle age.

There's the cabinetmaker, his first love; his tennis partner, with whom it takes him two years to make a move; the college sweetheart who he reunites with every four years but never for lo ...more

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Feb 02, 2017 Gerhard rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: gay-interest, 2017

I am a huge fan of Aciman, but this just did not work for me. The strongest section is the first; there is little to tie the five together, so this is really just a loosely bound collection of disparate novellas. Plus the fact that the central protagonist is so reprehensibly louche and dissolute that I had not the slightest ounce of empathy at his plight of being unable to find love. Moral of the story: a dick is a dick.

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Apr 23, 2018 Lobstergirl rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

The homosexual desire here was so much more convincing than the heterosexual desire, I was surprised to find the author is straight. Thus the last two chapters didn't work for me at all, although you need to get to the last page to find out something which (I suppose) is important. Aciman's writing is very nice but he has a tendency to overuse similes and create aphorisms that trickle on for a long paragraph. ...more

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Nov 14, 2020 Tyler Bell rated it liked it · review of another edition

3.25/5 Stars

A little bit disappointed in this one

André Aciman's Enigma Variations had very high shoes and expectations to fulfill after reading Call me By Your Name. Maybe that is on me, but I found that this book just didn't quite take me there in terms of emotion or even in its characters.

One thing that you're always going to find in an Aciman book is absolutely gorgeous writing. I mean, this book wasn't my cup of tea, but man did I eat it up just because of the power behind this man's wor ...more

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Apr 18, 2017 Casey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, book-club, lgbtq, autographed-copy

André Aciman attended our gay book club last night! As in, it was me, seven other readers, and Dr. Aciman in a small circle of chairs. I got my book signed. It was a treat.

Knowing my experience with Call Me By Your Name, I shouldn't have read this one last minute. Aciman's writing has a way of irritating me that requires distance before I have a complete opinion. Because his speciality is detailing the infinite vacillations of thought and desire. And it digs in so close to the damn truth! It's u ...more

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Aug 14, 2020 Anjal rated it it was ok · review of another edition

n-n-oooo-oooo *in jessie j’s voice*

boy was this book a drag! i generally appreciate character driven books but reading this felt like a chore and guess what, i hate doing chores. this has got to be longest 266 pages i’ve ever read, even after skim reading the whole book! i found the main protagonist, Paul, shallow, kinda gross and mostly stalker-ish.
the only thing that excited me was when i found a typo in the 2nd story lol (page 85, incase you’re wondering). it seems like im cursed with bo ...more

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Nov 15, 2018 Read By RodKelly rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I want to read everything this man has written. The lyrical, poetic writing, filled with passion and sparkling intelligence, carries this story of one man's love affairs to a place of sublime beauty. Aciman wrings out so many emotions from his intensely intimate scenes that it's hard to read at times but the book is pure poetry. If you loved Call Me By Your Name, you'll love this even more. ...more

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Feb 02, 2017 Sarah rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, fiction

A beautiful novel that can be read like interconnected short stories on the meaning of love, identity, relationships, and longing. Aciman's prose is gorgeous and flows smoothly throughout the book, which makes it both easy to read yet something you want to savor. He cuts at the heart of human connection, what sparks relationships, sustains them, and makes them difficult. Overall, it's a book full of stories about what it means to be human and the desire to be surrounded by love and companionship ...more

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Nov 23, 2017 Sofia rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017

I loved Aciman's words, his writing, but I got bored with the person he was writing about. For me the first story 'First Love' is 5 star material.

Like musical variations, Aciman uses this method of using the same theme in different ways to show us Paul and his playing musical chairs with his lovers. I realise that we see Paul in a rather one sided manner because even though we have different stories, different times, the subject matter is still his obsessive thoughts about new love. Paul appeare ...more

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Jul 30, 2019 Rose rated it liked it · review of another edition

I really enjoy the way Aciman’s characters think but overall I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed. It seems the main character, Paul is a coward and somewhat tragic stalker of his victims of ‘love’. Maybe his ferocity of love is simply beyond my comprehension...

I don’t know what I think

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May 01, 2019 Emma rated it liked it · review of another edition

Enigma Variations follows Paul throughout his life and his relationships. The book contains 5 stories that show us his feelings, his actions and his romances.
I must say I expected more, I wasn't totally happy with this book and that's why I'm giving it 3 stars.
The story I appreciated the most was definitely Manfred even though the ending left me wanting to know more. ...more

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Mar 01, 2017 Doug rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

4.5 No one writes as elegantly and eloquently about love and desire in all its myriad forms as does Aciman - nor does anyone delineate the bisexual life with such (seeming) accuracy. If his latest novel does not quite reach the heights of his debut, Call Me By Your Name, that's only because his earlier effort was more or less perfect. This presents five linked stories about protagonist Paul/Paulo, from his days as a 12 year old suffering (a perhaps reciprocated) lust for his Italian village's eb ...more

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Feb 25, 2017 Sara rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This collection of stories/novel is an intimate and raw reflection on love and relationships through one man's eyes. Each separately titled portion is centered on a particular love interest. Aciman writes with such intimate acuity that the story is alternately passionate and painful. At times I was even bored by the unfiltered obsessions of the narrator, but drawn into his worldview, nonetheless. Aciman's/the main character's observations and revelations are pure and disarming, unsure and yet pl ...more

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Aug 12, 2020 Tarneem Maitham rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

André is one of my favorite writers, his writing is extremely vulnerable and sensual.
he has this style in writing that you can’t shake it out of your head.
His words always seem to haunt me in every book i read.
This definitely one of the best books i read this year.
Highly recommended.

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Aug 05, 2017 Nigel Massey rated it did not like it · review of another edition

It's not so much the insufferable and selfish protagonist that I found the problem. No wonder he can't commit: his bisexuality has nothing to do with his lack of a sense of loyalty or duty or fidelity. He's a spoiled, arrogant and solipsistic brat. Having said that, I very nearly gave it three stars after the first section; but the crashingly dull people surrounding him overwhelm the book. Pretentious, Sunday-supplement people drinking the latest New York Times wine-recommendation on a balcony t ...more

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Feb 01, 2017 Robledo Cabral rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories

It is obvious to readers of Aciman’s debut novel, “Call me by your name”, that there are two themes which the author favors over everything else: love and memory. As he intertwines them in his literary broodings, he carefully places his focus upon how love evolves over time, or upon how our perceptions of it are tinged by our experiences. Do we love a person, or the thought of him/her? How do we construct coherence around our erratic love-and-loss episodes by musing over them in hindsight? Does It is obvious to readers of Aciman’s debut novel, “Call me by your name”, that there are two themes which the author favors over everything else: love and memory. As he intertwines them in his literary broodings, he carefully places his focus upon how love evolves over time, or upon how our perceptions of it are tinged by our experiences. Do we love a person, or the thought of him/her? How do we construct coherence around our erratic love-and-loss episodes by musing over them in hindsight? Does love age the way we do? Does it follow an entirely separate path – can you be in your late 70s and love like a teenager? It is into these and other questions that Aciman has been known to channel his literary efforts, and the result has seldom been less than dumbfounding.

In his acclaimed first novel, Aciman tackled the unsettling territory of teenage love in all its do-or-die intensity; in his new collection of short stories, “Enigma Varations”, he attempts to significantly broaden his scope, and to more globally scan the different phases and features of love. There are five stories here, and they chronologically accompany Paul, the first-person narrator, as he grows older and more experienced, and as he fumbles to make sense of the storm taking over and tearing apart his head and heart. The whole idea blurs the lines between literary genres: while the five stories are certainly self-contained unities, there are meaningful connections between them, and I don’t think they are meant to be read in any other order. Still, between one story and the other lies a ponderous silence, which grants each story an insular quality, as if Aciman’s intention were not to unfold a continuous storyline, but to display each tale under the temporary, but potentially blinding, flash of a thunderbolt.

His masterful exploration of teenage love, which basically destroyed me in “Call me by your name”, is once again present in "First Love", the story which opens the collection. Later stories will focus on love in different formats, as well as on its manifold byproducts: jealousy, anger, regret, fear, lust. There’s the interplay of transience and eternity, the conflict between dream and reality, the endless ringing of what-ifs. Regardless of what topic he happens to be focusing on, Aciman always strikes you as a very, very empathetic writer. He unabashedly dives into Paul’s troubled mind, and he sheds light on all the intricacies of what Petrarch referred to as life-in-death – that is, love.

I must highlight that Paul doesn’t seem to be very much into self-criticism. The “mistakes” he makes in the first story will resonate throughout the entire book, and even his tone seems somewhat unchanged as he stumbles upon different people and endeavors to understand the workings of his heart. Some people may be bothered by how Paul behaves like an adolescent throughout the whole thing, and, even though we all know that love is often crisscrossed by uncertainties and apprehension, this would have been a more solid book if Aciman had allowed his main character to adopt different stances and to metamorphose into something new by virtue of the very experiences he’s trying to make sense of. At points, the book does stand ambiguously between helplessness and immaturity – is love truly wreaking havoc in Paul’s mind, or is he just trapped forever in the loving heart of a 12-year-old?

Of course, Paul’s seeming stubbornness raises questions of a different order altogether: when it comes to love, to interpersonal relationships, are we all condemned to make the same mistakes again and again, however much we try to evade them? Do we get stuck into certain mental and sentimental rituals which prevent us from exploring love’s limitless possibilities? Are we all victims of our own longing to be loved? Can we ever overcome this without losing the ability to love?

Aciman does not offer vehement answers to any of this questions. He does, however, excel at something very few writers manage to do: he lifts you, the reader, to a state of suspension. His paragraphs are sensuously symphonic, and infinitely calm despite the fact that they are dealing with some of the most difficult questions out there. As you read his prose, your breathing slows down; you grow oblivious of the noises around you; you can easily picture yourself in the places he mentions, be it at an awkward dinner party with old-school friends or in a tennis court, unleashing a backhand against someone you’ve been secretly in love with for two years. Aciman is tremendously successful at creating an atmosphere and, more impressively, at sustaining it.

“Enigma Variations” is the name of an orchestrated work by Edward Elgar, and references to classical music abound in this short story collection, as they did in “Call me by your name”. In the first story, for instance, Paul recalls how he and his father used to sit alone at night, after strolling through the semi-deserted streets, and talk about Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. Needless to say, interrupting your reading of this book and listening to the pieces referred to is always an excellent idea. Even if you don’t, though, these paragraphs certainly exude their own humming rhythm, which is so very similar to the rhythm of love: overpowering, but all too sweet. ...more

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May 07, 2019 MJ Beauchamp rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: five-stars, words-on-words

Like most, I too was absolutely blown away by André Aciman's first novel Call Me By Your Name. Words can not describe the complexity and beauty of Aciman's writing. I picked up Enigma Variations not necessarily expecting (while definitely hoping) for the same feelings, and wow... I am in awe. So much so, I needed some time to let it sink in and gather my thoughts.

The book is comprised of five novellas, in which we follow a man's state of mind through key relationships and at different points of ...more

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Jan 30, 2017 michael trulli rated it it was ok · review of another edition

The first chapter, in and of itself, is a beautiful story, and contains such delicious language of desire.

Ultimately, I was disappointed by most of the rest of it. The "conflicted bisexual" type of protagonist that seems to creep up all too often in explorations of sexuality feels like a safety net for the author and the reader.

After the first chapter, I find Paul, the protagonist/narrator, less and less relatable, or even believable. It's the same kind of fundamental disconnect that made John ...more

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Jan 11, 2017 XD rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned, read-in-2017

I WISH THE FIRST SECTION OF THE NOVEL (FIRST LOVE) HAD BEEN THE WHOLE NOVEL. That section was the most compelling, poetic, and well-developed of the sections - it felt like its own little novella- and I wish that had been developed into a larger work. The other sections just couldn't compete with the rawness, melancholy, and electricity of that first section - there was a real momentum and tone captured there that made all of the other sections pale in comparison. ...more

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Nov 09, 2017 Lisa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Aciman writes beautifully about desire and love and the fluidity of his enigmatic narrator's sexual identity. I don't remember if the musical piece Enigma Variations is referred to, but the title certainly fits these linked stories and their puzzling narrator. ...more

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Mar 05, 2020 Stina rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: lgbtq

3.5/5

Okay, look. I am FINE with dreary and annoying love interests who go and pine around like idiots for way too long. I love myself a pretentious unrequited love story. It gives me something to relate to (lol). This is why I absolutely ADORED the first three stories, especially the third about Manfred. I could have an entire (though short) book with the main character just pining for Manfred because I thought it was beautiful, which I know is an unpopular opinion in itself. The book had really ...more

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May 24, 2020 Catherine rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club, lgbtqia

What I find interesting about my feelings towards this book is that I didn’t entirely love any part of the story or characters, like, at all, yet I could not put it down at certain points due to how lovely the writing was.

This book is about a man named Paul and his love interests throughout his life. I don’t believe it was ever explicitly stated, but from what I gathered, he was in his forties by the end of it. The love interests each had their own section of the book which detailed the relatio ...more

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Jul 18, 2018 Liina Bachmann rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018

I would argue that it is a book about love, like many reviews and also the book cover state. Love is safety, finding comfort in the familiar. Most of those five stories are about the exact opposite. They are about the unknown. That tiny gap of time we all want to relive again and again - when you've met someone and you are driven insane by desire, can't function in a normal way and are driven by the novelty of this feeling. And Aciman knows that feeling well, very well in fact. His writing is so ...more

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May 26, 2017 Mónica BQ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fav-contemporary

I cried like it was me the book was talking about. And it took me a week to finish this because I kept having to pause after each set of stories and read something else.

I think that what got to me the most was how real this read. The entire book talks about love in its many shapes and forms and it all spoke to me. Enigma Variations is about the shared intimacies in relationships that are unique to each and yet so universal we can all relate to them. The flow of falling in and out of love and our ...more

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About André Aciman

André Aciman

6,395 followers

André Aciman was born in Alexandria, Egypt and is an American memoirist, essayist, novelist, and scholar of seventeenth-century literature. He has also written many essays and reviews on Marcel Proust. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, The Paris Review, The New Republic, Condé Nast Traveler as well as in many volumes of The Best American Ess ...more