And when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment…” That’s just a fancier way of saying soulmates. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.

The book never backs out from being a highly expressive-erotic coming-of-age literature.Īs it was brought to my notice, the book revolves around Plato’s Symposium which says, ‘according to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Every page was filled with obsessive love from a distance. I was in awe of the expression of desire. I had never read a single piece of literature that expressed passion and desire for someone else in such rawness, without filters. Then picked up my pencil, and marked those lines in parentheses. There were numerous times when I gasped for air, and said ‘AH, BEAUTIFUL’. The feelings have transcended through these words on the pages of the book into a universe of their own. For Elio, all these feelings aren’t functional in this real world. What Elio feels/felt for Oliver was/is desire, passion, want in its purest form. The story takes exactly two pages and gets straight to the point: desire. Majorly, the book focuses on Elio’s desire for Oliver. Hence, it becomes a story of Elio and Oliver’s desire for each other. The author has used Italy’s summer as an expression of desire, and passion.

Yes, the location and season are very important. The book Call me by your name, written by André Aciman, centers around the kindling love story between precocious Elio– a 17-year old curious, and intellectual boy, and Oliver– a 24-year-old visiting summer assistant to Elio’s father– in the 1980s of Italy. The book never backs out from being a highly expressive-erotic coming-of-age literature. Buy This Book on Amazon Was It Just a Summer-fling? CMBYN and Me

Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman