Call Me by Your Name: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Andre Aciman (Author) "Later!" The word, the voice, the attitude..." (more)
Key Phrases: San Clemente, New England, Signora Milani (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Egyptian-born Aciman is the author of the acclaimed memoir Out of Egypt and of the essay collection False Papers. His first novel poignantly probes a boy's erotic coming-of-age at his family's Italian Mediterranean home. Elio—17, extremely well-read, sensitive and the son of a prominent expatriate professor—finds himself troublingly attracted to this year's visiting resident scholar, recruited by his father from an American university. Oliver is 24, breezy and spontaneous, and at work on a book about Heraclitus. The young men loll about in bathing suits, play tennis, jog along the Italian Riviera and flirt. Both also flirt (and more) with women among their circle of friends, but Elio, who narrates, yearns for Oliver. Their shared literary interests and Jewishness help impart a sense of intimacy, and when they do consummate their passion in Oliver's room, they call each other by the other's name. A trip to Rome, sanctioned by Elio's prescient father, ushers Elio fully into first love's joy and pain, and his travails set up a well-managed look into Elio's future. Aciman overcomes an occasionally awkward structure with elegant writing in Elio's sweet and sanguine voice. (Feb.)
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From School Library Journal
Adult/High School—Seventeen-year-old Elio faces yet another lazy summer at his parents' home on the Italian coast. As in years past, his family will host a young scholar for six weeks, someone to help Elio's father with his research. Oliver, the handsome American visitor, charms everyone he meets with his cavalier manner. Elio's narrative dwells on the minutiae of his meandering thoughts and growing desire for Oliver. What begins as a casual friendship develops into a passionate yet clandestine affair, and the last chapters fast-forward through Elio's life to a reunion with Oliver decades later. Elio recalls the events of that summer and the years that follow in a voice that is by turns impatient and tender. He expresses his feelings with utter candor, sharing with readers his most private hopes, urges, and insecurities. The intimacy Elio experiences with Oliver is unparalleled and awakens in the protagonist an intensity that dances on the brink of obsession. [...] His longing creates a tension that is present from the first sentence to the last.—Heidi Dolamore, San Mateo County Library, CA
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (January 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374299218
• ISBN-13: 978-0374299217
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (109 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #119,419 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

149 of 150 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reflections on a Summer of Love, February 6, 2008

By	Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME is one of those books so rich in story, in content, and in style of writing that it immediately becomes one of the great novels of the time. With this novel André Aciman steps into the rarefied air of writers such as Jamie O'Neill, Colm Toibin, Reinaldo Arenas, Constantine Cavafy, Edmund White, Michael Cunningham, and even EM Forster and Thomas Mann - a disparate group of luminaries, perhaps, but each with the ability to create an evocative, sensual love story beyond the limits of traditional tales. Though highly recommended by friends over the past year, this reader only now had the pleasure of reading this novel, and the result was to immediately read it again, so rich are the treasures this book holds.

Agreeing with other reviewers that telling too much of the plot is unfair to those who have yet to read Aciman's book, suffice it to say that CALL ME BY YOUR NAME is a meditation on the awakening of love, the myriad emotional and physical responses of the act of attraction developing into acting out and becoming an obsession, and the indelible mark that 'first love' makes on the hearts and lives of those involved.

Elio is a beautiful seventeen-year old lad, transcribing Haydn's 'The Seven Last Words of Christ' in his Mediterranean villa where his parents annually invite a young writer for a six-week residency to complete a work and assist the father in his own work. This summer the resident scholar is twenty-four-year old American scholar Oliver who is having his work on Heraclitus translated into Italian. There is an attraction between the two young men, a veiled dance of courtship, and an ultimate revelation of a profound love that becomes intensely physical as it develops from its intellectual and artistic beginnings. The 'love affair', as erotic as any in literature, is fully realized on a brief trip to Rome, and then the two part: Elio remains in Italy and Oliver returns to the US. And after the summer's transforming events Elio narrates the next twenty years, sharing the impact of his first experience with love with the reader. The title of the book echoes the words the lovers' exchange during intimacy: each becomes the other and in doing so completely acknowledges himself.

Aciman writes so eloquently, so sensually, and so intelligently that many passages beg re-reading as soon as the impact of a paragraph is complete. Quoting from the book is almost impossible: where would you start to isolate excerpts in a work that has no weak pages? Yes, this is a gay love story, but it is far more than that. This is a meditation on the miracle of the transformations love induces, and those transformations are universal. A book of such quality should find a wide audience: André Aciman is writer of rare genius. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, February 08

80 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Impressive Debut Novel from Andre Aciman, December 31, 2007

By	John Kwok (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Andre Aciman, a noted essayist and City University of New York professor of comparative literature, has written one of the most memorable debut novels published this year, "Call Me by Your Name", ranking alongside Eugene Drucker's "The Savior" for its emotional intensity, as well as its high literary quality. It's a truly memorable coming-of-age story about an adolescent Italian Jewish man, Elio, who learns a lot about love and total intimacy from a visiting American professor, Oliver, during a brief six week period one summer, set, sometime, in Italy, back in the 1970s or 1980s. Aciman offers us an honest, unflinching portrait of total intimacy, showing how these two men gradually move from mere friendship to an all too brief, but intense, romantic encounter, in a small town on the Italian Riviera, and then later, one night, in Rome, shortly before Oliver flies back home. It is an encounter that will truly haunt both men for the rest of their lives, as depicted in occasional scenes that jump forward to the present day. Aciman's portrait is truly compelling, and one that I found impossible to put down (No wonder why it has been considered for prominent literary awards, such as the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction.); Aciman is not only a fine literary stylist, but a compelling storyteller too. Without question, his fine novel deserves ample consideration, not only from those familiar with his excellent nonfiction prose, but also from others, such as yours truly, who are not fully acquainted with his work.

146 of 153 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Beauty of Language, The Landscape of Mind, January 27, 2007

By	Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Aciman, Andre, "Call Me By Your Name". Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. 2007

The Beauty of Language,The Landscape of Mind

Having just closed the covers of Andre Aciman's "Call Me By Your Name", I feel compelled to sit down and write what is going on in my mind. I am an avid reader and I have come across many books in my life yet the experience I had in reading Aciman's book is like one seldom found in the printed word. The book is pure beauty. Aciman has managed to tackle all of the emotions and put them down in beautiful prose. As you read you feel as if you have been hit over the head and literally dragged into the pages of the novel. You will experience feelings that you had no idea you were capable of and you will look back at your own life and begin to view it as you have never done before.
I am in awe of the novel and the novelist. It is not often that a single book can awaken these emotions in me and I am so glad that I found one book that made me sit up and realize so much--about the world and about myself.
The theme of adolescent love has become a staple in the world of literature and unfortunately more often than not it becomes a tired subject. Aciman has taken the theme and breathed fresh life into it. Here we have a story of love and regret that once read will not be quickly forgotten.
The book is about a romance that blooms quite suddenly between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at the youth's parent's summer home on the Italian seaside. Neither is prepared what might happen as a result of mutual attraction so they each pretend to be indifferent to the other. As might be expected, as the days pass during that beautiful summer, passion is unbridled and they test their feelings for each other. In doing so obsession and fear as well as fascination and desire burst forth allowing hidden feelings to surface, sometimes quite erotically. They find themselves involved in a deep and meaningful romantic encounter which barely lasts six weeks but eaves an indelible mark on both of them, a mark they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. What they discover in their feelings for each other is a total intimacy that happens maybe once in a lifetime.
Aciman captures beautifully the psychological maneuverings of the boy and the man as he writes his lament about human passion. When the love of their dreams explodes into the reality of closeness, we get a sentence that reads, "I did not know where all this was leading, but I was surrendering to him, inch by inch, and he must have known it, for I sensed he still keeping a distance between us." This sense of love to come pervades the novel and when that love does come it is inclusive, it is beautiful and it is highly sensual.
Before that love shows its face there are games played--footsie at dinner, stares of lust and steel, long runs, mind games. Seventeen year old Elio, an Italian youth and Oliver, an American graduate student play the game of cat and mouse with ambiguity, hostility and, above all, attraction. We, the readers, see the story from inside Elio's mind and thoughts where everything has meaning.
What about the sex? Believe me, it is there and there is plenty of it. There are also elaborate erotic fantasies and what makes all of this so interesting is that Andre Aciman is a straight man writing about gay sex. What Aciman set out to do in his novel was to show us human intimacy in all its preciousness and in all of its idiosyncrasies. The beauty of the language and the descriptions make you want to hop into the pages and be there with the characters--not as a fly on the wall, but as an active participant. It would be a chance to see what true intimacy is all about.
Desire has always been a cornerstone of life but I can tell you the desire that you read about in the pages of this book is unlike any other you have had the experience to read about or even to know. The pain of love is hard to depict in words yet "Call Me By Your Name" is an achingly painful and beautiful tribute to desire and intimacy and one you will not likely walk away from and forget.
I have recommended many books and I will continue to do so but this book is so dear, so tender, so brutal and so beautiful that I say this to you--if you read no other book this year, read this one.