I overdosed on Aciman

Seeing the film Call Me by Your Name I followed by reading the book on which the film is based. I got hooked and started to read Aciman’s work and listen to his lectures on YouTube. Now I almost finished the next book of his - Enigma Variations and started to feel that I have enough of his style and stories for a while.

I think that the title of the book is quite appropriate – Enigma Variations. The book is enigmatic and consists of loosely linked stories that are variations on the subject of love. The title is the same as Elgar’s Variations on the Original Theme composed in 1898 that comprises of fourteen parts. Here I thought that this is a nice link to Proust. Aciman wrote only six themes and this is quite enough for me. Six stories about love linked by the name of the protagonist who does not necessarily have to be the same person. If he is the same person or not it is not all that important. What is important is love that is the subject of each of the stories. As for the XXIst century, they are very idealistic, romantic love stories often based on such goodness of the heroes, that it reads like a fairy tale. Similarly, to Call Me by Your Name, the book I am reading has stories about love between men. The stories are compelling and present love in a very pure and tender manner. Aciman writes beautifully about gay love, almost more beautifully than I have read in any romance between women and men. Not that I read all that many romances, so maybe my comparison here does not have much value.

I wonder if Aciman is gay himself, it does not seem so, but his insight into gay emotions is remarkable. On the other hand, after having quite a bit of contact with his way of thinking, I myself came to a conclusion that love is love and its orientation does not mean anything. Of course, there are some practical implications like having children. This would point to the fact that gay love may not be natural and as such should be condoned. This is not my way of thinking.

Aciman writes about the feelings between men in such a way that I almost think that such love may be more beautiful than the most beautiful love between a woman and a man. He writes about love based on the goodness of the people who love each other, their tenderness towards each other and giving. What I particularly like about the books of Aciman and the film is that there are no explicit scenes and no nudity (in the film, of course). Some people would argue with me about the lack of explicit scenes. Yes, there is one very controversial scene. That controversial that one of my rather broad-minded friends left the cinema theatre after the scene. What is explicit are facial expressions of a very talented Timothee Chalamet. His ability to express feelings may get him an Oscar for the last couple of minutes of the film when his face shows without a word the inner farewell to his love, to his innocence and life as he knew so far. I was spellbound watching him and I am not an exception.

Looks that I am still very much in the mood created by Andree Aciman even if I started the post differently. The thing is that I do not intend to finish the book in the near future. Not that it is not good, but I feel a need to change the mood. It may be a little difficult as I do not have a good candidate for my next reading. Perhaps I need something lighter, maybe funny? 

My book club reading is The Trial of Kafka. This is different, all right, but I somehow I do not feel like jumping into it for relaxation and fun.

Maybe I could give reading a short rest. But this morning I got a lovely article from one of my blogging friends about a bookworm and I know I am one of them so the break may not be all that long. Here is the reference https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/15/childrens-books-lucy-mangan-bookworm?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=264253&subid=1405434&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

My recent reading fascinations

I have been always a reader. It started very early when I was a solitary child and I occupied myself after my homework with reading. My mother had a very comprehensive library of classics. At that time in Poland, French literature came just after or just in front of Polish literature in the minds of those who knew what was what. The books were published in series. All books of the same author bound in covers of the same colour and design. Often the books were even bound in leather or some sort of fabric. One had to subscribe to buy such editions. My mother did and I suspect she bought all that was available. However, I do not remember any Dostoyevsky on the shelves. She may have been selective in her book choices, after all. I do not remember her reading the books, she may have only planned to read them one day. When the days when she had enough time to read came, she preferred to watch TV. So, I cannot remember my beautiful mother sitting with the book, engrossed in the story she would be reading. But the library was big and comprehensive. Balzac was all maroon colour, two Polish most famous poets of XIX century were one in pale blue and the other in brownish red with horizontal golden stripes. Polish Nobel prize winner in 1924, Reymont, got a special new covers ordered by my mother at a place that bound books to order. The spines were made of linen canvas. Influenced by my mother’s library and her, perhaps, exaggerated, care for the way the books looked like, I always believed that there is something very special about the written word. I became an avid reader then. I had a reading break for some years when I was working too intensively to read much except for books helping me to be successful at work. Now, I have returned to serious reading. And this is again literature rather than psychological of self-help books. I like nicely published books like my mother did and I often buy hardcover books when available. Or I buy books in Poland, they are much cheaper there than in Australia and they usually have great covers. Silly? Yes, it is silly, but my pleasure of reading nicely looking books seems to be bigger than reading ones that are flimsy and do not open properly.

Writing about my reading I just realized that this is the whole process for me and some trappings are of importance. The reading light needs to be good. But this is just common sense. I like nice bookmarks and I collect them. I have my special reading corners at home. Bookcases are the most important pieces of furniture.

HanyaYanagihara

Andre Aciman

Karl Ove Knausgaard

Kazuo Ishiguro

After some inner struggle, I have accepted retirement as my current way of life and reading became an important part of my life again. For a while, I did not have any favourite writers. I know the names of classics and I have a good idea what their writing is all about, but I was looking for some guidance. I have a friend who knows about literature and he made some very good suggestions and some very good presents that I had to read at least out of politeness. Slowly, the list of my absolute favourites got organically identified. It will perhaps grow or maybe even change, but for now, it is Ishiguro, Aciman, Knaussgard, and Yanagihara. I am catching up with works of Ishiguro and Aciman. They are my discoveries of the last six months. I already know Knausgaard quite well, but he is so prolific in his writing that there is always a stream of new books coming from him. Yanagihara’s next book will come in a good few years and I am already curious what her next subject will be.

I wondered what links the writers and why I got so attracted to their books. They all have the reputation of being “Proustian”. They all say that Dostoyevsky Chekhov and Proust had very big influence on them and the way they write. I know Chekhov only from his plays. Maybe I should read some of his stories? My favourites’ reading lists show me the way and I may follow their example one day. I have read Proust already. It took me many years, but I even enjoyed it and got the mood of the books. I have a problem with Dostoyevsky, though. I have read most of his books, but this was a very long time ago, I was very young then and perhaps I did not understand their value. Read him now again? This is rather off-putting. So intense, those turbulent feelings, tragedies all around, those Dostoyevsky’s women blindly following their men to perdition. A good way to get depressed. But I have his books on my shelves. Hmm…. No, not now.

If I chose to study literature rather than mathematics, I would most likely have stayed in Poland and landed up a teacher of a uni professor. I wonder how my life would have been then. Not that I have any regrets, just momentary curiosity.

Today, I have been reading the essays of Aciman – Alibis. The chapter Intimacy resonated with me a lot. Many ideas made me stop and ponder about myself. Apparently, according to Aciman, in the process of reading, we find ourselves and this may lead to deeper understanding of self. This is actually my reason for reading and this desire dictates the choice of books I read.

The sentence that made me stop and re-read it few times: Insight and intuition are borne from this intimate fusion of self with something or someone else. I think that other things can also be borne from such a fusion.