Gaya Scienza

Best Books in 2007

Fiction: Call me by your name, Andre Aciman

Call me by your name (Andre Aciman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 256 pages, January 2007) is a very well written novel, short and dense, about passion, love and the effect of time. I reviewed it in this column earlier this year. The book is having quite a success, it is ranked #3,140 at amazon.com which provides 63 customer reviews as of this week! I found the following review very good:

"The Beauty of Language,The Landscape of Mind (Review posted at amazon.com, by Amos Lassen from Little Rock, Arkansas on January 28, 2007)
Having just closed the covers of Andre Aciman's "Call Me By Your Name", I feel compelled to sit down and write what is going on in my mind. I am an avid reader and I have come across many books in my life yet the experience I had in reading Aciman's book is like one seldom found in the printed word. The book is pure beauty. Aciman has managed to tackle all of the emotions and put them down in beautiful prose. As you read you feel as if you have been hit over the head and literally dragged into the pages of the novel. You will experience feelings that you had no idea you were capable of and you will look back at your own life and begin to view it as you have never done before.
I am in awe of the novel and the novelist. It is not often that a single book can awaken these emotions in me and I am so glad that I found one book that made me sit up and realize so much--about the world and about myself.
The theme of adolescent love has become a staple in the world of literature and unfortunately more often than not it becomes a tired subject.Aciman has taken the theme and breathed fresh life into it. Here we have a story of love and regret that once read will not be quickly forgotten.
The book is about a romance that blooms quite suddenly between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at the youth's parent's summer home on the Italian seaside. Neither is prepared what might happen as a result of mutual attraction so they each pretend to be indifferent to the other. As might be expected, as the days pass during that beautiful summer, passion is unbridled and they test their feelings for each other. In doing so obsession and fear as well as fascination and desire burst forth allowing hidden feelings to surface, sometimes quite erotically. They find themselves involved in a deep and meaningful romantic encounter which barely lasts six weeks but eaves an indelible mark on both of them, a mark they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. What they discover in their feelings for each other is a total intimacy that happens maybe once in a lifetime.
Aciman captures beautifully the psychological maneuverings of the boy and the man as he writes his lament about human passion. When the love of their dreams explodes into the reality of closeness, we get a sentence that reads, "I did not know where all this was leading, but I was surrendering to him, inch by inch, and he must have known it, for I sensed he still keeping a distance between us." This sense of love to come pervades the novel and when that love does come it is inclusive, it is beautiful and it is highly sensual.
Before that love shows its face there are games played--footsie at dinner, stares of lust and steel, long runs, mind games. Seventeen year oldElio , an Italian youth and Oliver, an American graduate student play the game of cat and mouse with ambiguity, hostility and, above all, attraction. We, the readers, see the story from inside Elio's mind and thoughts where everything has meaning.
What about the sex? Believe me, it is there and there is plenty of it. There are also elaborate erotic fantasies and what makes all of this so interesting is that Andre Aciman is a straight man writing about gay sex. What Aciman set out to do in his novel was to show us human intimacy in all its preciousness and in all of its idiosyncrasies. The beauty of the language and the descriptions make you want to hop into the pages and be there with the characters--not as a fly on the wall, but as an active participant. It would be a chance to see what true intimacy is all about.
Desire has always been a cornerstone of life but I can tell you the desire that you read about in the pages of this book is unlike any other you have had the experience to read about or even to know. The pain of love is hard to depict in words yet "Call Me By Your Name" is an achingly painful and beautiful tribute to desire and intimacy and one you will not likely walk away from and forget.
I have recommended many books and I will continue to do so but this book is so dear, so tender, so brutal and so beautiful that I say this to you--if you read no other book this year, read this one."

I don't know if "what makes all of this so interesting is that Andre Aciman is a straight man writing about gay sex." I rather think that it is very difficult to believe... and somewhat disappointing... This is by far the best gay novel of 2007.

Non-fiction: Being Homosexual: Gay Men and Their Development, Richard A. Isay

Being Homosexual: Gay Men and Their Development (Richard A. Isay, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 159 pages, 1989), my choice for this year was published many years ago... I just happened to read it this year. I wish I had read it when I was in my twenties, although I was probably not ready for it. It is one of the best books about homosexuality and how to come to terms with it, that was ever written. It is short, up to the point, and uses very straight (sorry) and simple language. The author is an American psychiatrist who went himself through a long journey of self-acceptance as a gay man in the seventies. The book is divided into nine chapters. The best are chapters 1 (What is Homosexuality), 4 (Adolescence and Young Adulthood of Gay Men), 6 (Lovers and Others: Gay Relationships). In a nutshell, Isay's thesis is that homosexuality is a natural variant of normal sexuality and is present since childhood. Because of the way it is generally portrayed in our society gay men often suffer from injuries to their self-esteem. The best way to repair this wound is through establishing relationships with other gay men, and more than anything else through intimacy: "Relationships that are mutual and loving, both sexual and nonsexual, are essential to the healthy integration of a homosexual identity, promoting a positive self-image." Isay also writes that he believes that similarities between two partners may prove a burden over a long period of time and that "the sexual and emotional interest simply wanes more rapidly in such relations because there is neither the tension that promotes sexual excitement nor room for emotional growth. Many successful gay relationships are based on a difference in the partners - a difference in age, race, social status, or personality that provides the complementarity that allows for the tension of sexual desire and also the emotional space for the couple to grow in." Food for thought.

Note: I have no financial interest in Farrar, Straus and Giroux...

2007.12.23

Business as Usual; Call me by your Name

Un éditorial du New York Times prend fermement position en faveur du mariage gai. D'après le journal, le gouverneur de l'état de New York, Eliot Spitzer, présentera prochainement une loi reconnaissant le mariage entre individus de même sexe, comme il s'y était engagé pendant la campagne électoral, l'automne dernier.

***

Un des derniers numéros du New Yorker consacre un article à Carlos Picon, le responsable du département Antiquités au Metropolitan Museum of Art, à l'occasion de l'ouverture de la nouvelle galerie Leon Levy et Shelby White.

À l'époque où Picon, natif de Porto Rico, aujourd’hui agé de 52 ans, était en train d'être recruté par le Met en 1989, il fut alerté par le responsable du département d’Antiquités de Sotheby’s : une sculpture mystérieuse était mise sur le marché. Haute de plus de 2 mètres, elle représentait un personnage d’allure féminine mais musclé, au visage étonnant, sans nez, aux côtés d’une femme plus petite. Elle était mise en vente par une famille de Palm Beach qui la conservait à côté de la piscine, sous un auvent, et pensait qu’il s’agissait d’Artémis, la déesse de la chasse. Picon l’identifia immédiatement comme le Dionysos de Hope, perdu depuis 1917. C’est l’une des pièces maîtresses de la nouvelle galerie Leon Levy et Shelby White.

Si vous allez visiter la nouvelle galerie, qui occupe un magnifique patio intérieur rénové, il faut en profiter pour aller voir le cratère d’Euphronios, l’une des pièces les plus précieuses du musée : un vase représentant la mort de Sarpédon peint par l’artiste grec Euphronios. Thomas Hoving, l’ancien directeur du Met, l’a qualifié de «l’œuvre d’art la plus parfaite. C’est un objet délicieux. Léonard aurait adoré en être le propriétaire.» Il se trouve dans la section de galeries ouvertes il y a huit ans, et, à l’issue d’un accord avec l’Italie, doit être rendu à ce pays en 2008.

La rénovation a été réalisée grâce à un don de 20 million de dollars de Leon Levy, un ancien partner chez Oppenheimer & Company, la célèbre firme d’investissement, et sa femme Shelby White. Le couple commença à s’intéresser aux Antiquités dans les années 70. Leur appartement de Manhattan devint un véritable musée. Un bronze du 1er siècle avant J.C. représentant un athlète, une fois et demie la taille réelle, trônait dans leur salon. Chez les Levy-White on l’appelait Harry. Ce surnom lui avait été attribué lorsque la sculpture était en prêt dans le musée de San Antonio, à cause de sa ressemblance avec un des jeunes donateurs du musée. Harry se dresse aujourd’hui à l’entrée de la nouvelle galerie.

Leon Levy est mort en 2003. Carlos Picon se souvient de la fascination de ce dernier pour les empereurs et les généraux de l’antiquité dont il lisait avidement les biographies. «C’était un grand distrait – il disait à son chauffeur, ‘George, c’est notre voiture ?’ et il lui arrivait d’oublier que Shelby était avec lui à un dîner en ville et de partir sans elle – mais il n’oubliait jamais le moindre détail d’un fait historique ou d’une œuvre d’art.»

Allez donc voir Harry, le cratère d’Euphronios et le Dionysos de Hope au Met.

Ah oui, j’allais oublier. A la fin de l’article, l’auteur décrit une visite qu’elle rendit à Picon dans son appartement de l’Upper East Side. En passant, naturellement, elle écrit : «The appartment is an expression of Picon’s taste, as well as that of his partner, Andrew Kepler, an architect.»

***

La couverture du livre avait attiré mon attention. Un homme dans une piscine: il s'appuie sur le bord à l'aide de ses bras croisés sur lesquels il enfuit le visage. La photographie en noir et blanc, prise de haut, met en relief ses épaules musculeuses et viriles.

Mais le nom inconnu de l'auteur, le titre Call Me by Your Name, et la nature de l'ouvrage, un roman, ne m'avaient pas poussé à aller plus loin.

Récemment, en faisant le tri de vieux journaux, je suis tombé sur une critique du New York Times consacrée au livre, au titre évocateur: Soudain un été. «Ce roman est chaud. Un récit d’apprentissage, une histoire de coming-out, une méditation proustienne sur le temps et le désir, une lettre d'amour, une invocation et parfois une épitaphe, Call Me by Your Name est aussi une question ouverte. C'est une livre exceptionnellement beau.» Evidemment cela donne envie d’aller voir de plus près.

Andre Aciman est professeur de littérature à l'Université de New York. Il a raconté son enfance et son adolescence au sein une famille juive, italienne et turque d'Alexandrie dans son livre de souvenirs: Out of Egypt, A Memoir. Il est spécialiste de littérature française du XVIIème siècle et du roman moderne européen.

Call Me by Your Name (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007, 256 pp.) est son premier roman. C'est l'histoire d'un coup de foudre entre un adolescent de 17 ans et un jeune homme de 24 ans professeur à Columbia, venu passer l'été sur la Riviera italienne pour corriger un livre sur Héraclite. Le récit est chargé d'érotisme, un érotisme sous tension qui incite à tourner les pages comme dans un roman policier, où l'attente, pesante comme la chaleur d'un après-midi méridional, exacerbe la tension.

2007.04.29