"We weren’t courting each other but an implicit something seemed to hover between us"
The anticipation around Andre Aciman’s follow up his 1995
novel Call Me By Your Name was
palpable from the moment the work was announced. Not only did the film
adaptation fuel demand for more from Elio and Oliver but the excitement around
the possible film sequel sent fans into a frenzy. With the hard-back book now
published the question is whether all the hype is worth it?
In Find Me Aciman
tales us back into the cultured and acedemic world he first created in the original
novel but the first chapters pick up the story with Elio’s father at the
centre. On a train journey he meets and, almost unfeasibly, falls in love with
an enigmatic woman on the seat opposite. Admittedly this is literary fiction
but there is something unrewarding about a couple meeting in such a way. Its
almost lazy.
Later in the novel we catch up with Elio who is working as a
classical musician in Paris. He is lost and reflective about the relationships of
this past, most notably with Oliver, but nevertheless he meets and falls in
love with an older man who he meets at a concert. Again, a leap in imagination
is required to accept this relationship for what it is. Given the tenderness
and longing Aciman created in Call Me By
Your Name we know he can write beguiling prose but in Find Me such passages are few and far between.
It takes until the novel’s final chapter for Elio and Oliver
to meet up in scenes which are finally reminiscent of the original novel and the
subsequent film. The trouble is that it’s barely worth the wait. Is ‘Find Me’ a
bad novel? Perhaps not but it does suffer from over selling by the publishers
who are so desperate to give audiences what they want.
Let’s hope the film adaption, which will certainly need a
more developed screen play, doesn’t suffer the same fate. 2 star
Read a review of Aciman’s Enigma Variations here.
Find Me by Andre Aciman published by Faber and Faber 256 pages
