Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!
How did your reading go this month? Did you read something set in the 1980s that you enjoyed? Share in the comments!
I read our main title: Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman. This is the first book in the Call Me by Your Name series.
Every summer, Elio’s father, a college professor, hosts a young academic. This visiting scholar’s only requirement is to help the professor for an hour each day and then they are free to use the rest of the time however they please. They live in the house, interact with the family, write, roam the area, and visit neighbors for dinner.
The guest this mid-1980s summer is 24-year-old Oliver, a philosophy teacher at Columbia University. Oliver is fiercely intelligent, but what surprises all those who meet him is his charm. The community and family immediately love him – preparing special food, taking him on trips, blanketing him with attention. The one holdout: Elio, the professor’s seventeen-year-old son. His reason: he is utterly infatuated with Oliver.
Elio wants Oliver for himself. He wants Oliver to see him, to understand him, to stay the night with him, to love him. Yet, Elio is fearful. He’s scared of town gossip, but most of all, he’s afraid of losing Oliver’s attention and acceptance. Elio isn’t shy about expressing his feelings, longings, and passions to himself, but saying them out loud to Oliver is terrifying. Elio has spent his life being minimalized by his parents and those around him. He may be intelligent, but as the only child and the youngest person at the dinner table where riveting and stimulating conversations take place amongst brilliant guests every night, he spirals into an obsessive loneliness. When Oliver shows up and shines his attention onto Elio, he explodes with want and need. Elio wants to completely open up to Oliver, but is afraid of losing that one person who actually listens to what he has to say. Crossing that line will change both of their lives forever, whether it’s positive or negative depends on Elio and Oliver alone.
Here are my thoughts: I had a love-hate relationship with Elio throughout this entire book. Elio is obsessive, pouring over and over every little interaction or object. Once Oliver arrives, his obsessive thoughts find a new target. Elio is desperate to be understood by Oliver, which led me to worry about how he would react if/when their relationship ended. Oliver and Elio’s relationship was painful to watch. It was slow at the start, terrifying while it’s happening, and devastating when it ended, a confusion similar to what it’s like to be a teenager in your first romantic relationship. The end of the book gives some closure. After Oliver left, I was finally able to see Oliver as a confused coward, not the perfect being that Elio made him out to be throughout the book. Seeing how their relationship progressed as adults helped me like Elio and Oliver a bit more, providing some reasons for their behaviors as young men. All in all, an interesting, frustrating, and confusing read.
Series list
- Call Me by Your Name (2007)
- Find Me (2019)
Next month, we are traveling to the 1990s.