Photo: Sony Picture Classics

It finally passed. A week ago a younger and less wise version of me was sitting in bed sobbing to the end of a novel. “Call Me by Your Name” by André Aciman. It took me a week to finally be able to put all my thoughts together in a less irrational way.

Curious with all the noise on the internet, mainly because of the film, I decided to go through a joint reading experience with my best friend. I did not regret it. The love story between between a 17 year-old and his father’s student during an idyllic summer in Italy is an aggressive and shameless trip through what it is to be in love. But not any kind of love, that uncontrollable, lose-your-mind style kind of love.

During my life as a reader I have caught myself having all types of reactions to the books that I had the pleasure to roll my eyes through. Although, after reading this book in particular, I experienced something very new, that no book had ever caused on me.

We all get a little bit nostalgic after a good book, perhaps carrying those feelings with us for a few days or maybe just thinking about it, more like an aftertaste. For this book, the feeling was far from pleasant and got me in the blues for days. It felt like I was not able to digest all that overwhelming tsunami of feelings I had during the time I was reading. The book is beautiful.

But after spending a few days inside of Elio’s head, leaving it felt like torture. And now I can finally put it together as one feeling: mourning. But why?

First, I was mourning for losing Elio. The narration is so involving and real, we are able to transport ourselves to each moment they spend together and picture everything so well. While reading, I felt in Elio’s brain more than I ever felt in any other first-person narrative book, his mood swings, his doubts. I grew so attached to the character and it felt so much like a younger version of me that finishing the book and saying goodbye to Elio felt horrible. I wanted to know more of him, I wanted to stay with him more and learn about his entire life after that summer.

Secondly, I was mourning for the end of their time in Italy. The book’s approach on time is so real and the love so raw. We count the time they have left and we hope it never ends. But it does. Like everything else in life and also life itself. Watching such a love slipping like sand through their hands and following their lives after hurt, and make us reconsider our priorities in life, how one should live and enjoy the moments. When summer is over, the emptiness and the doubts over the future leave us with painful questions about their future, and the answers we find next aren’t relieving.

And lastly, quite weirdly, I was mourning for myself. In my head, this book represents freedom, frivolity, youthfulness and I happened to be close to my 24th birthday when I read it. Oliver’s age. It was a sign for myself that the time and values which the book represented are not so close to me anymore as they were. That I was about to start a new phase and (perhaps quite late) officially enter adulthood. It was the completion of my own coming-of-age story.

Luckily the book has a beautiful answer on how to deal with loss. The father’s speech comes in good moment, we should feel it. How often in our lives we desperately seek for replacements at the end of a relationship of any kind? We don’t allow ourselves to feel the pain and the loss and those replacements, as we know very well, are almost never effective. Mr. Pearlman’s words were essential for me in a time when I needed it very much. In normal circumstances I would have tried to replace my loss for something else. But now I will allow myself to feel it. We shouldn’t “rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster”. We should let they take their time.

My mourning is almost over now and I’m ready to watch the film (maybe it will bring it back). From the book I take that what we are left with are our memories. And just as Oliver, I’ll remember everything! And if you haven’t read “Call me by Your Name” yet, please do.

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