Student Life | Issue 41

REVIEW
Call Me By Your Name
Book Review
BY ISABEL GLENTON
Call Me by Your Name is a novel that
I find painstakingly difficult to sum
up within the confines of an article.
However, my friend Jasmine managed
to reduce it to five words: “two gay
blokes in France.” Despite this being
amusing and agonisingly wrong, I
wouldn’t be surprised to find that this
is what most people believe is behind
the title. So, as a courtesy to the book,
and André Aciman himself, I will try
my best to give the manuscript a
review befitting of its brilliance.
Within these pages, Elio Perlman
reminisces about the summer of
1983 at his parent’s holiday home
in Bordighera, Italy. The novel
centralises on the adolescent’s
overwhelming infatuation for one of
his father’s yearly-staying doctoral
students, Oliver. Elio’s feverdreamish
recount tows the line of his
resentment and longing for Oliver
while he tries to come to terms with
his sexuality. Aciman eloquently
depicts this story, enticing the
reader to feel Elio’s pain in his own
overdramatised and romanticised
way.
A quotation that I believe perfectly
captures the essence of the novel is,
‘Is it better to speak or to die?’ “Speak”
meaning confess his love for Oliver,
but by confessing his love for Oliver
he runs the risk of being rejected
by Oliver and possibly his family.
This rejection, to Elio’s overthinking
and introverted mind, regards a
fate worse than death. Rest assured
that his hesitation isn’t simply just a
literary ploy, it is also a contextual
barrier; you see, society in the early
eighties was not as liberal as it is
today, and homophobia was far more
prevalent.
However, as much as you see the
book categorised under LGBTQ+
fiction, the fact remains that the word
21 21 •• MARCH ISSUE 2019 41 •• STUDENT LIFE LIFE