OTF 12: Call Me By Your Name Book Review… ish
Fringers, there are three things I can confidently say I am an expert in: Create Mode, AllStar Cheer and Call Me By Your Name. This is excluding always living as my authentic self, always finding the brightness, wearing my heart on my sleeve and also soda… but for today, I am taking my ass back to 17, when a sad, lonely, brace-faced gay tapped into 123movies and let Guadagnino’s gag choke him up…
Now I don’t know if you guys have heard, but I have spent the better part of this year studying abroad in Florence, Italy. I chose Florence for a myriad of very valid and personal reasons, yet, I feel moved to admit that a primary impetus was my fixation with Luca Guadagnino’s cult classic queer film, Call Me by Your Name.
I was first alerted to CMBYN’s existence in my Freshman year of high school when—in the middle of the lunch chill sesh—my friend locked eyes with me and said, very seriously, “Trey, you need to watch this new movie.” That night I curled into my Hawaiian bed sheets and tapped into the modern day Vatican:123movies. Following the first twenty minutes, I remember becoming increasingly impatient as I wondered when Elio and Oliver were going to stop their yapping and get naked. When forty minutes had passed and still no clothes had been shed, I exited out of the tab and my experience ended there. Clearly, I was not ready for the film. I was too horny.
It was not until the summer before my junior year of highschool that I had cultivated the patience and sensibility to not see the first forty minutes of the film as worthless, This summer was especially rough, in the most privileged of its definitions, as I was forced away from all my friends and everything I loved to be jammed into a beautiful cabin in Lake Tahoe with just my family, the trees, and tennis; yay, now I was incredibly lonely… and horny. This summer I was also talking to a boy, and I remember entertaining fantasies that he could be my forever, so, when this boy told me (over Snapchat) that CMBYN was his favorite movie, I quickly canceled all my plan and fired up 123movies.
Those 2 hours and 12 minutes knocked me on my ass and flipped my world upside down. The scenes played, the songs were heard, the men were gay, and I was crushed. Guadagnino’s artistry wrapped around me like a Boa constrictor, squeezing out sorrow and grief until I was nothing but a shell. The film left an insatiable nebula in my stomach that required constant feeding. To keep it at bay, I scoured the internet for every interview, director's cut, and video of Lil Timmy Tim I could find. After exhausting all media sources, I watched the film for a second time, and was equally as devastated. And I was still horny.
My favorite scene, at this time, was the one that took place at Elio’s reading spot. This is where Elio and Oliver first find the courage to reach out and touch. I loved how their sexual tension had come to a boiling point where neither could deny their desires any longer. I was tantalized by the ferocity of Elio’s kiss and his bold grabbing of Oliver’s crotch—a move I thought I would never be able to pull off. I loved the way Guadagnino made you sit on your hands until you were about to burst…..Never before had I been so moved by a film’s stylistic flair and composition. I remember the first time I listened to Sufjan Stevens music after watching the movie, and how consumed by grief I was; at a time when I felt numb and alone, CMBYN slapped me awake with its devastation and its twink x 6’3 otter love tale.
Two days after that first full viewing I went ziplining with family friends. I was having a wonderful time amongst the majestic trees and the Lake Tahoe pines… until I remembered. It was like a dagger had been shoved right through my MLM heart, or as though the darkest and thickest cloud was holding the sun captive; it was excruciating. I was, in part, feeling the sorrow of Elio, but mostly I was put in the dumps by my belief that I would never experience a love so wonderful. I didn’t believe the all encompassing infatuation that Elio and Oliver shared was for me, or in my future. It was like God had shown me heaven and then YANKED me back to my 17 year old sad and miserable horny life in the middle of the woods… Did I mention I also had braces?
I was in a crisis. Was life even worth it if I couldn’t have what Elio and Oliver had? The grief became so severe that I turned to the deepest cavern, and the ultimate guiding light: Reddit. I sought my community—the other queerdos and fierce allies that couldn’t shake the film from their psyche. How was I being immobilized by a fictional story? Why was I thinking of it the moment I woke up? Why did Guadagnino ruin my life with his romanticism and his stunning cinematography? I probably watched the film ten times that month.
I didn’t start to feel the sorrow alleviate until three months later, as in, I could wake up without images of Elio and Oliver invading my mental palace and running a dagger through my heart. To this day I have never been moved so intensely by a piece of media (the only thing that has even come close is the Era’s Film). The guttural reaction I had to the movie quickly developed into a parasocial obsession with Crema and TCHALAMET which resulted in a Timothee shrine (thirty photos of him arranged in a pyramid pattern) being erected in my room. My obsession with the film undoubtedly came from the lack of queer media in the mainstream. In a similar way I became infatuated with Drag Race, I was certainly moved to the extent I was by CMBYN due to my hunger for queer representation. It was shocking to resonate so deeply with characters who weren’t reduced to gay stereotypes and slick side characters. CMBYN was the perfect punch that knocked me on my ass for a solid minute… Or a couple of months. Honestly, it was nasty—representation really does matter, otherwise young impressionable minds can end up on reddit. And if I know one thing, it’s that gay people will STAN; CMBYN was the first thing I stanned. <3
A year later, when quarantine shut all doors and kept us to our beds I decided to read the book. At this point I was a proud Chalamaniac and was capable of watching the film without being debilitated the following week. Thus, I bought the book on my Ipad and got to reading. I had very high expectations considering how moved I had been by the film. I remember being confused at multiple points during the book as my pea sized seventeen year old brain attempted to grasp the grandness of Elio’s interiority and the words and structures Aciman employed to build it. At this moment in time, I was not registering the beauty of Elio’s intense desires, and was more so waiting for the smut to happen—hoping it would be more intense in literary form. Still experiencing the negative effects of horniness, when I closed the last page, or rather, cleared the ipad tab, I was disappointed. I felt that the book had fallen flat, and was nowhere near as gripping or entertaining as the film had been. Despite my grievances, the TChalamet shrine remained the focal point of my room for the next three years. In hindsight, I am aware that I was not ready for the book or for the beauty of Aciman’s words
Fast forward four years and I found myself meandering the romantic cobblestone streets of Florence, Italy. I had long moved past my obsession with the film as my brain had filed it away in the “Trey’s lore” cabinet so other more pressing matters, like Create Modeing, could take the spotlight. In Florence I experienced a sort of cognitive dissonance as I lived in the country that had for so long represented this fantastical idea. Although nights wasted thinking about CMBYN were long in my past, it continued to hang in the back of my mind, only to be triggered by certain words and monuments and sounds. It was like Love is Blind, as though Italy and I had been developing a beautiful relationship through a thin veil that kept us from touching, until finally the veil was lifted, and I found out that Italy was 6’2 and hilarious and passionate about the arts and really into Women’s Artistic Gymnastics…. Real life Italy was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. Upon spending four sublime months under the Italian sun, I am surprised at how excellent a job Guadagnino did at capturing Italy’s essence. The way the sun shines and Italian’s move with languid resplendence and history’s visible mark on every street and alley; time moves differently in Italy, and everytime this would come to my attention—when I would be stuck behind two millennial Italians moving at the pace of a small infant down the skinny Italian sidewalk—I would open the CMBYN filing cabinet and remember. No matter how in the past and moved on I felt from seventeen year old me, I knew that it would be a disgrace to leave the country without taking a trip to Crema; I am still gay… and perhaps a little horny.
So, on the second to last week of my Florence semester, two of my best girlfriends and I pulled the padge and found ourselves speeding on a train towards the petite Italian town that is Crema, Italy. Taylor Swift’s fortieth studio album had just been released the previous night, and as we listened to it on the train I found myself engaged in a figurative dialogue with 17 year old Trey. As I gazed down at him—I’m much taller now (6’2)—I was flooded with gratitude. I was now living the life I once dreamt of, and looking back to an era of my life filled with despair and isolation emphasized the beauty of what surrounded me. Rapidly, I snapped out of my mental dialogue by So High School, which at first the girls and I shat one, but now, we love!
Our train slowly came to a stop as we pulled into the infamous station. The “Trey’s lore” filing cabinet that had been kept closed immediately flung open. I gaped at the station where one of my favorite scenes, one I knew by heart, occurred. I could see Elio’s sad eyes as he tore himself away from the man he loved. I pictured his hunched shoulders, his call with his mother and their long drive back to the villa. The by proxy heartache was stuck in my throat; I felt as though I had swallowed a peach. My girls hurried me along to a restaurant where we enjoyed a nice lunch in the square where Elio and Oliver shared their first substantial conversation. “I read, transcribe music, swim down at the river, go out with friends.”
Now, I will not bore you with every detail of the trip. I would like to leave it—slightly—in mystery, as something that only my girls and I share. But as I have resolved to live my life within the public’s eye, I will relinquish some of the trip’s highlights.
We got to see, and even touch! The bikes Elio and Oliver used while filming
I got to take a picture with very realistic cardboard cutouts of Chalamet and Hammer
I bought, for a very steep price, the book because how monumental was the movie and this town for me and how do I not already own the book and perhaps I should read it again since I am older and I love words and I am now closer to Oliver’s age than Elios and I’m not as horny and maybe the wound hasn’t healed like I thought it did and maybe it will reveal me to myself like it did when I was 17
We took a lovely bike ride to the sacred Call My By Your Name river spot where Elio and Oliver first reached out and touched, and the spot where my favorite scene took place
It was not until I found myself at the sacred Call Me By Your Name gay river that nostalgic memories of heartache were pushed to the side by new feelings of connection, wonder, awe, and gayness I had chills touching, feeling, and looking at a place that had, until that point, been related to a fictional story and characters. I was having a real, and monumental experience with this river because of a fake and made up story. My reality married the figurative and conceptual to create this dual and magnified experience. All other monuments we had visited on this trip derived their value solely from the film: Elio and Oliver kissed here or this is where Elio and Oliver ate lunch. Yet, at the Call me By Your Name sacred river, I was able to interact and move within a space that had been 2D to me for so long. It was empowering to remove this sacred river spot from its ten minute scene in the film— a scene that had made me feel so helpless, so young and incapable—and imprint on it my own experience. “I would never be able to pull this off” I used to think as I watched Elio grab Oliver by the balls presumptuously. As I ran around the river with my girls and our laughter punctuated the air, I was proving to myself that I had grown; no longer was I this alone and hollow seventeen year old who thought he was unworthy of the hyperboles of life. Instead of sadness, I easily felt joy, warmth and levity. Still, there was a potent dichotomy between the relationship I had with the location via the film, and the experience I was having with it in real life. It was destabilizing. Two different realities and sets of emotions were being experienced at the same time: One reality stemmed from the 2D rendering of the river that appeared in the movie, and was associated with feelings of grief and incompetency and the other stemmed from the tangible, whole, and entirely sensorial experience I was having with the river as a twenty year old on his study abroad. Are both these experiences equally as real? If the feelings spurred by the river that are connected to the film could be debased/eclipsed by my two hours with the tangible setting, then were those six formative months of depression all delusion? Although I felt empowered that I no longer felt any sadness in connection to the river, I felt silly in retrospect for believing so much in something entirely fictional. Yet, because I believed Elio and Oliver were real, the experience I had with the film had tangible and very formative effects. Thus, is my experience with the 2D river as real as my experience with the 3D river? Does this not defy the logic behind reality? Can fiction make itself real through human resonation and connection? It is the same relationship reality has to delusion. You can be delusional and still be existing in reality, but there will always be a time when you must face the rational and remove yourself from the fantasy, and that was what happened here. Yet, removing myself from the fantasy of Call Me By Your Name, the fantasy that had greatly shaped the person I am now, was hard, and came with feelings I did not expect. However, amidst all these existential questions, I felt very happy as we rode away to meet our 6pm bike rental return. No longer when I think of that spot do I think of Eiio and Oliver but of my girls reading, writing, and laughing under the Italian sun.
After reading this last paragraph back and discussing it with my friend, I realize the uncomfortability I had with the river was not about clashing realities/emotions, but rather, about coming face to face with my own delusion. Believing in Elio and Oliver’s story as reality does not make them real, it makes me delusional. This fact does not make the depressive six months any less formative, it just makes me look silly and young and naive… which I am. In these twenty minutes I’ve shown myself a lot about the way I think… and I am gagged. I deadass tried to spur an academic debate regarding the concept of reality, all to feed my delusions. On a happier note, I think this proves I’m not as horny as I once was, because if there’s one thing that keeps delusion fed, it's horniness.
Getting back on track, perhaps it was this moment at the river I realized that I had grown immensely from seventeen year old Trey, or maybe it was the grief that squeezed my heart from missing Italy that while in Iceland I decided to pick up the book and give it a second chance.
Now that I have provided 3000 words of backstory, I will begin my very critical, honors thesis level, review.
While in the past I considered the book to fall short of its movie counterpart, this most recent experience with Aciman’s tale blew me away. The interiority Aciman lends Elio, through sermons wrought with queer anxiety, fostered a much deeper connection to the story. Now that I was able to comprehend the allusions and grand metaphors Aciman employs to dramatize the story, Elio and Oliver came to me (pun intended) more vivid than ever before. I was moved most by Aciman’s magical way with words: his comparisons, metaphors, sentence structures, and prose; all of it left me in awe. It was a master class in dramatic queer writing, and I took a seat.
In contrast to the movie, the reader sees entirely through Elio’s eyes. Through this subjective narration I was able to see Elio’s youth and naivete take center stage. Especially within the first one hundred pages, I was regularly showing parts to my Iceland girls, ridiculing Elio for his overthinking and his hyper romanticism. He was so outlandish and hypercritical when thinking about everything, but especially Oliver. It reminds me of one of my favorite twitter memes—a millennial celebrity responds to a fan’s question on insta with, “I think you people spend way too much time thinking about yourselves.” Elio certainly spent way too much time thinking about himself. I’m sure the way in which he thought about his desire, and Oliver, reminded every gay man of their younger selves, of their first experience being swept away by the tidal wave of love, and the beauty and turmoil it causes within. I enjoyed, and like to say I resonated with, the way in which Elio’s intelligence hurt him. Despite being very capable, articulate, and observant, Elio lacked the maturity and the life experience to know what was real and what wasn’t—just like me (proven three paragraphs above).
Aciman’s portrayal of love through an intelligent and naive Twink brings me to another point: Despite Elio’s clear naivete, I do not feel that Oliver took advantage of Elio nor did he leverage Elio’s youth for his benefit. Oliver is consistently weary of how Elio scrutinizes his actions and, until desire wins over, chooses to distance himself from Elio rather than engage. When Elio and Oliver’s relationship does turn sexual, Oliver is insistent on making sure it is what Elio wants; I do not feel that there is ever a breach of consent between the two that is initiated by Oliver. This is not to say that because Oliver does not leverage Elio’s youth that their relationship is no longer implicated. No matter how cautious Oliver is with Elio, he is still benefitting implicitly from Elio’s inexperience. I believe that Oliver was hypersensitive to Elio’s tribulations regarding his desires and their relationship, and did a good job at doing what he could to mitigate the potential issues that could arise around consent. I make this point not because I feel that it is very relevant to my review of the book, but more so because I know Oliver and Elio’s age gap is a major critique made of the film and narrative at large.
Despite the popular opinion that Oliver had essentially “used” Elio for a summer fling, I argue quite the opposite. I posit that Elio was the one who entered the relationship with ulterior motives. I believe that Elio sought his truth, and answers to personal questions, more than he sought Oliver's affection. It was very obvious reading the book for a second time that Elio, while disillusioned by fantastical ideas of Oliver, was after personal knowledge more than anything else. Elio’s insatiable desire for the answers to questions that had been plaguing him (am I gay? are these urges natural? is this real?) was the driving force behind his hunger for Oliver, and I bring in two points to back up this claim. First, Elio—who was so uncomfortable with his sexuality—was tantalized by Oliver’s effortless comfortability and the ease at which he moved in the world because this was what Elio desired more than anything, to be comfortable. Second, the answers to these questions could only be found within the queer space that Oliver offered Elio/exposed Elio to/forced Elio to engage with. Oliver was most valuable to Elio in that he could give Elio what he wanted most: the truth. The title of the book and the swapping of names that comes after they have sex for the first time supports this argument as well. Elio calls Oliver by his own name to represent that he has found the truth within Oliver; Elio discovered who he was in the space Oliver carved out for him.
In light of Elio’s ulterior motives, I want to touch upon the ambiguous figures that Oliver assumes as Elio searches for himself. I dive into this to support a broader argument that CMBYN is more about queer solidarity than it is about love. Getting older, and coming from a very heteronormative place and then finding myself in Berkeley surrounded by queer excellence, I have come to realize that there is nothing more powerful or profound than solidarity. The power that comes from being supported by people you resonate with, especially when what brings you together carries stigmas, is unparalleled by any fulfillment of desire/urge. Apart from my own experience, I found it so interesting the themes of brotherhood that emerge within Elio and Oliver’s relationship. Of course, we were blessed with Stevens beautiful song, Futile Devices, that explicitly states, “I think of you as my brother, although that sounds dumb,” which exemplifies the way in which Oliver’s support went lightyears farther than the fulfilling of desire, and entered this profound space of solidarity that transcends time. Towards the end of the book, when Elio and Oliver have reunited and they sit sharing dinner, Elio emphasizes how his experience with Oliver took on various forms of solidarity. “... as he’d pour the wine for his wife, for me, for himself, it would finally dawn on us both that he was more me than I had ever been myself, because when he became me and I became him in bed so many years ago, he was and would forever remain, long after every forked road in life had done its work, my brother, my friend, my father, my son, my husband, my lover, myself.” (Aciman 236) As someone who has struggled with feeling connected to men, and has just begun to develop an admiration for male centered bonds, this part really spoke to me. Through support and tenderness, people can become unbounded. The male friends I grew close to in Italy not only became friends with 20 year old Trey, but also with the nine year old Trey that felt ostracized and isolated. My queer friendships that have flourished in college—shoutout Alex and Bautista—shine color on the Trey that was terrified to come out, or the Trey that crumbled to pieces at 17 after watching this movie. More than touch, sex, and love, Elio and Oliver’s relationship is about solidarity. This is not to renounce solidarity that manifests through sex and touch and love, but in the case of the story, I emphasize solidarity that is free of animalistic desire.
Aciman, through his development of Elio as a character, did a great job at introducing the idea of gender fluidity. As Elio begins the journey to accepting his desires in light of Oliver’s arrival, he states, “...I was still under the illusion that, barring what I’d read in books, inferred from rumors, and overheard in bawdy talk all over, no one my age had ever wanted to be both man and woman—with men and women.” (Aciman 28) The introduction of this duality, and implicitly, Elio’s questioning of the effectiveness of labels and definitions, I loved very much. Aciman did a great job at touching upon the concept of being non binary and the juxtaposition that exists between the unbounded sense of self and the labels we use to understand it.
While Aciman did many things remarkably, I have one negative critique: I do not agree with the cliche that Oliver was Elio’s one true love and the only person who would ever be able to see Elio for who he was. I just do not agree with the idea that people are fixed. I believe that there are one million versions of Trey that exist that are equally as Trey as the Trey that sits typing this. How can there be one correct and true perception of someone? Like Joni Mitchell says, something is gained and lost with each day. We are always changing, evolving, moving forward. While I do not agree with the way Aciman employs this trope of “one true love” to add grandeur and intensity to Elio and Oliver’s relationship, I do believe that Elio’s commitment to this idea of Oliver being the “only one” serves to emphasize his naivete and lack of experience. At seventeen, you are desperately seeking labels and definitions to attach to yourself as a way to grapple with the billions of hypothetical yous that exist in the future. With labels we are better able to process our magnificent existence. To this day I find myself constantly searching for ways to ground my identity. Yet, as I believe that I am an unbounded being of multitude, I believe that my love is as well. I do not believe in one true love… I believe love exists everywhere and is exempt from any type of hierarchy we try to conform it to. I believe love is an all powerful omnipresent feeling, there is no one true love, just as there is no one true Trey. I return again to Joni M, who stated, “everything I am I am not.” As I have gotten older I have learned to embrace this/my fluidity. I love so many various people and various things because I am a being of variety! The Trey that interacts with his parents, the Trey that writes, the Trey that goes to a frat, the Trey that is a student… those are all me!!!!
Aciman boy have you taken me on a journey. Through it all, the delusion and the beauty, you have changed my life and I will be forever inspired. There is nothing more valuable than feeling validated, seen and reflected, and you did all these things for me, at a point when I needed it most. You are mother!! I hope to create something as meaningful as CMBYN one day, and I’m confident I will be able to. So look out Fringers!!! Maybe the next blog will be about two clothes who find themselves in a messy queer entanglement….
I will shut the door on this review with one last excerpt that I really love. In the height of confusion and personal chaos, Elio asks,
“Like every experience that marks us for a lifetime, I found myself turned inside out, drawn and quartered. This was the sum of everything I’d been in my life—and more: who I am when I sing and stir fry vegetables for my family and friends on Sunday afternoons; who I am when I wake up on freezing nights and want nothing more than to throw on a sweater, rush to my desk, and write about the person I know no one knows I am; who I am when I crave to be naked with another body, or when I crave to be alone in the world; who I am when every part of me feels miles and centuries apart and each swears it bears my name.” (Aciman 187)
