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Veronica Pena (690 KP) rated Call Me By Your Name in Books

Jan 18, 2020  
Call Me By Your Name
Call Me By Your Name
André Aciman | 2007 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry, LGBTQ+
10
6.6 (8 Ratings)
Book Rating
I loved this book and then I hated it and then I loved it again. Let me back up. I love everything about the way this book was written. I think that if I were going to write a book in a similar fashion, it would look a lot like this. The way Elio thinks and sometimes overthinks is very similar to my own. I think that it's very obvious that this book is written about a European boy in the way that he talks and thinks about love and sex and the grand scheme of life. At one point in the novel, Oliver asks him if he's always been this wise and Elio shrugs and says he knows nothing and I think that is so far from the truth. You would never find an American 17-year old that talks and thinks about love and sex and life in the way that Elio does - at least I don't think - and I loved that. I read a lot of American and English authors and novels and it's nice to be transported to a different place - the very serene cottage that Elio's family lives in - and live vicariously through him and Oliver.

The parts that I didn't like in this novel have nothing to do with the characters or the dialogue or anything pertaining to the story really. I think the trouble of writing a novel from this specific perspective is that Elio's thoughts can get away from him, especially at good parts where you just want the story to keep progressing. Overall though, they always find a way of meaning something and bringing you back in.

Finishing this novel left me with these mixed emotions of euphoria and heartbreak. I love the way that Elio talks about Oliver and frames him to be the great love of his life, essentially, and Oliver does the same thing years after their last encounter together. I find the way that Elio thinks about him and loves him to be magical and all-encompassing and I think if you've ever experienced that overwhelming feeling of love and desire of another person in every way, you can just put yourself in Elio's shoes and you're transported back to that feeling and it's really magical. I think that's what books should do for you.

I was also surprised at how much I enjoyed the time jumps that happen at the end of the novel. Sometimes I think that they are unnecessary and just annoying because you want to think about the characters having lived this certain way and when it's given to you, it can sometimes be disappointing but I didn't feel that with this novel. I appreciated them, I liked where they went, and I liked that there was and probably always will be this unspoken deep, unresolvable love between Elio and Oliver.

This novel is written almost as if Elio is dying and someone asked him about the love of his life and he remembers it so vividly and with so much love that he's lying back and telling this story and just reminiscing and falling in love with Oliver all over again - at least that's how I read it. I loved this novel. The last paragraph just really pulls it out of you and I just. It's great. I'm not sure what else to say other than it's great.
  
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Bill Nighy recommended Punch-Drunk Love (2002) in Movies (curated)

 
Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
2002 | Comedy, Drama, Romance
8.0 (4 Ratings)
Movie Favorite Watch

"A relatively new film that went straight into my top five, I adore Punch Drunk Love, and I can almost recite it to you. It was on TV on a loop for a while, and it’s like The Godfather, you hit that film on TV and you stay there. There aren’t many, but you just stay there, thinking, ‘I could keep flipping, but there’s not actually going to be anything better than this,’ and it doesn’t matter that you’ve seen it sixteen times – you just dig it because it’s such high quality. I think Adam Sandler and Emily Watson are completely marvellous in it, and I didn’t know anything about Adam Sandler, I’ve never seen any of his other films, so I’ve only seen him in this. I love Paul Thomas Anderson, and I think it’s my favourite of his films. Possibly a controversial thing to say, as his other films are, perhaps, hipper, but I love the fact that it’s this fucked up love story. I love it stylistically, the jokes, the visual attitude of it and those funky links that he does. I love the apparent arbitrariness of the plot, which hinges on upon the fact that you get free air-miles with a particular brand of chocolate pudding, and I love the way it dovetails at the end. Everyone in it is magnificent, including Philip Seymour Hoffman, who’s in The Boat that Rocked and who is beautiful in Punch Drunk Love. Adam Sandler gives one of the greatest light entertainment performances I’ve ever seen. It’s a submerged light entertainment, it’s so integrated, so authentic in terms of naturalism, that you surprise yourself by laughing, because it’s so deadpan, so undercover in terms of comedy, and that’s my favourite thing of all time, the highest level. For the first twenty minutes you think you’re in art movie hell, but you’re not, so don’t panic."

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