It happened again...

Yet another Did Not Finish.  I checked last year, and it seems I'm good for two DNF's a year and they always come back to back, so the good thing about this is that I'm telling myself I'm done for the year. 

Should I have any regular readers, you know that I don't feel obligated once started to finish a book, but it always kinda hurts--or perhaps, catches me off guard--is a better phrase, when it happens.  This years double hitter of, "I can't get through this hot mess," comes as a major surprise, even to me.  I've mentioned about the shock of Perez-Reverte's The Nautical Chart, but not getting more than a hundred pages through André Aciman's Eight White Nights, was a surprise that really took my breath away.  Granted, he had no where to go but down.
 
I went into this book with Call Me by Your Name on my mind which is easily one of my favorite books ever, that said I read Eight White Nights--or at least one-hundred pages of it--and judged it on it's own merits.  Is it possible that one of your all-time favorite writers can also turn your stomach? 

Love stories that happen in New York City make me sick.  Anyone who doesn't live there and has ever read a love story set there may not agree, but probably knows where I'm coming from.  They are elitist, and esoteric and at times it feels like they are purposefully so; to be read and enjoyed only by New Yorkers.  That aside, some very wealthy members of the Jewish community are throwing a Christmas party in the Upper West Side.  (Even more elitism, yeah!).  At this party we meet the most absurd and unbelievable character since ever: Clara.  Authors spend a lot of time on dialogue; making it sound authentic and feel right in our ears, even writing out all the mistakes and bad grammar that we use when we speak in an effort to come across as real to the reader.  Aciman probably worked harder than anyone else to ensure that trying to figure out what the hell these people are talking about was a convoluted exercise in painful futility, self-serving philosophy, and altogether overwrought-no-yield prose.  They speak stiffly.  It's jarring, but you get into it rather quickly, but no one would ever seek these people out for conversation, and the poor guy who some how falls for Clara (can't remember his name) takes us on the journey of just how difficult it is to talk to this woman.  It's not endearing.

Should you ever meet anyone who spoke like these people in real life, you would distance yourself, speak aloud 'Why are trying so hard, speak normally' or punch them in the face and walk off in confusion as to why they made you do such a thing.  I have friends and family in New York City, dare I say I even know Jews in the Upper West Side, but I don't know anyone who would tolerate talking to anyone at this party.  Can't you tell I really wanted to finish this book?  Stuff like this makes up my best commentaries. 

The DNF's suck but they do help in clearing out space on my bookshelves and earn me points at the book store.  I'm currently finishing the Warriors anthology I've been working on; it hit a really good stride with four or five nice pieces in a row.  After that I'll take Maria's suggestion and pick up Shadow of the Wind, which is probably what I should have done instead of Eight White Nights. 

Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman

"Then let me say one more thing.  It will clear the air.  I may have come close, but I never had what you had.  Something always held me back or stood in the way.  How you live your life is your business.  But remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once.  Most of us can't help but live as though we've got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then there are all those versions in between.  But there's only one, and before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it.  Right now there's sorrow.  I don't envy the pain.  But I envy you the pain."  Page 225

It's more than a bit intimidating… picking up this book for the first time.  The back cover informed me of no less than five top honors won in 2007.  There are heavy expectations with a novel as this and plenty of room for disappointment.  

Seventeen year-old Elio and his family are settling in for the summer at their mansion in the Italian Riviera.  As is their custom, since Elio's father is a prominent university scholar, they host a visiting scholar from abroad for three months.  Oliver, the 'muvi star' as the locals call him is this year's lucky guy.  He is twenty-four, American, and loved by everyone in the town of B.  None more than Elio.  

Elio's narration tells much about everything but himself.  What we have to conclude through his discussion with others, particularly Oliver, is that he is brilliant for seventeen yet has managed to maintain the emotional ineptitude of his peers: he doesn't know how to act, think, or how to express himself.  Aciman doesn't tell a story about falling in love.  Elio's feelings are known right away.  Rather Elio tries to explain how things got here almost as if he is defending his emotions.  

There is a sensitivity in Elio's voice and I actually grew to see his character as fragile as the book went on.  He is hard to describe as anything but delicate.  Much of his emotional angst could be explained by his age and yet his maturity--not his being mature for his age, rather his insights and intelligence--has a awful time reconciling his actions and feelings.  This is put into sharp relief when contrast with Oliver who is blunt, brash, and confident in all he does.  Elio is torn by desire and lust, guilt and shame.  He is walking insecurity.  

Both characters sexuality isn't merely intriguing: it is all-consuming.  The American 'muvi star' has no problem making friends, acquaintances,  and lovers in a beautiful summer in the Italian Riviera.  Nor does Elio, despite his age, inexperience and hormones, struggle to find the affections of women his age.  They both flirt with women.  They both make love with women.  They both conduct themselves in manner that is completely in line with who they are.  It's all a ruse.  A guise to cover what they want from each other.  One of Aciman's particular strengths is conveying the attractiveness of Elio and Oliver without ever giving the smallest inclination as to what they look like.  We know more of Oliver's clothing and Elio's artistic interest than we do concrete physical descriptions of what they look like.  Each reader is allowed to envision them as they will; and each reader will be correct.  

The book's title is a concept that defines Elio's and Oliver's relationship.  While the words "Call me by your name," are spoken more than once it is more than the silly gesture that it seems.  Elio and Oliver are one and the same person: likes, dislikes, interest, passions; there is nothing they don't share.  Elio wants to wear Oliver's bathing suits, his shirt, to sleep in his bed to--quite literally, wear his skin and be inside of him.  Again I say that is not a metaphor ( well, not really ) this is Elio's most dear desire.  The only thing more disturbing than Elio's obsession, and there is no other word for his feelings, is Oliver's reciprocation.  This wanting to be the other person culminates in the phrase "Call me by your name."  'I am you and you are me.'  While I'm confusing pronouns, I assure you Aciman gives new, near disturbing beauty to the phrase, "I want you inside of me."  

"He was my secret conduit to myself--like a catalyst that allows us to become who we are, the foreign body, the pacer, the graft, the patch that sends all the right impulses, the steel pin that keeps a soldiers' bone together, the other man's heart that makes us more us than we were before the transplant."  Page 143

If I had a point of contention with the novel--and I don't--it would be the title.  "Call me by your name," means so much more than just the words to the characters: the phrase is the embodiment of an idea; and expresses far more power than, "I love you."  I felt that when the line was used in the book it was almost robbed of some, though not much, of it's power just by the reader already being familiar with the title and not understanding it's meaning. 

The summer the two spend together is exactly ninety days.  A little, way too much, and not a lot can happen in that span of time.  I'll shake Aciman's hand, give him a hug and kiss in congratulations for writing the only believable "years after" moment in any book I've ever read.  The power of this relationship goes far beyond the physical and time itself seems unable to exhaust Elio and Oliver's feelings.  

The narration is raw, delicate, susceptible to bruising, and probably more honest than any reader would be comfortable reading.  It is equally convincing in its veracity, vicious lack of subtly, and relentless brooding.  This is some of the most beautiful prose and use of language you will come across.  If ever there needed to be an argument made for literature being art, here is my evidence.  Upon completion of the book, the same back cover doesn't have so much clout; for once, all the critics got it right…