Call Me by Your Name

This may be the most intimate, the most personal novel I've ever read in my life. Emotional intimacy, literary intimacy. I cannot begin to describe how much I connect with this book, this story, these characters, the writing - almost everything here feels like it was drawn straight from the tapestry of my deepest memories, feelings, desires. Things I didn't even think it was possible to write in words.

Above all, this is a book about time and how precious it is, how you will never get it back and it should never be squandered. And time's non-linearity: a few months, a week, or just one moment can define and capture a life. In that sense, it is universal.

I wonder what it would have been like to read this before watching the movie. I'm not sad I experienced the movie first, just curious. I was worried the book would ruin the movie for me, but they complement each other. I've never seen a movie capture the essence of a book so well. The acting was tremendous - in that looks and facial expressions were able to communicate the rich inner monologue of the novel. If anything, I actually think the movie was stronger than the book. They diverge at the end; and the movie is a tighter story. The only part of the novel I didn't love was the Rome scene, but I appreciated the epilogue that wasn't in the movie.

Many things became more apparent, but the most meaningful to me is the title “Call Me By Your Name”, becomes so much deeper when you read the book. It's not just about a name, Elio describes himself and Oliver becoming so close, sharing everything, that they literally became each other.

The ending is so cutting - the pain, the regret, that never really went away. Regret that life that is not endless and that decisions matter. “If not later, when?”