Ugh: “Ivan.” Telling anyone his name always felt like a betrayal—like I was causing the way they pronounced it, either incorrectly or with elaborate and ironic correctness, as if to imply that he was pretentious because he didn’t say “Eye-van,” the way literally nobody in the world except American people did. “When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone”: I read that line in The Picture of Dorian Gray, and felt the sickening lurch of dishonor.
