By André Aciman
Stories told mostly in
exposition get a bad rep. I myself am
fond of perpetuating the negative reputation while fostering the style—quite
the conundrum. And still my favorite Jane Austen is Persuasion and Joan Jett’s anthem for another generation (the one
after mine) resonates with me.
Aciman’s first person
narrative (a voice I’ve often cast slings and arrows at) lessens the
elucidation in an evocative, almost voyeuristic way. It is almost like a
forbidden glimpse into someone’s secret journal. There is intent in the stream
of consciousness to the writing, which in true decimation of the forth wall the
narrator owns. Linear time does not exist in memories, because the sequence of
events does not unfold laterally in something remembered. It’s jumbled and
there all at once, or not at all.
The metaphor
and simile of words twisted into imagery because sometimes this was like that; Aciman’s writing is, for
all intent and purpose, an extension of Elio. We are there in every moment he
is there. And as in Halbwachs’ La mémoire collective,
we know what Elio knows in more meaningful profound ways than merely reading
his diary. The breath, the feel and footfalls echo in us as they do for him, a
collective memory, because even the most cynical among us can remember these
things of love. Whether a first love, like Elio’s, or a last love. We are all
capable of imprinting a person onto a place and keeping that shadow forever
with us. In this way his name and my name are interchangeable and the title
makes so much more sense.
It was only when the
entirety of the novel was summed up like a trip to Bangkok that it made me sad.
As if love wasn’t love in the moment of the experience, but became love when
distance and time made it a memory. But we
share this as well.
The best and worse
part of this story is that collectively we know it all too well. Zwischen immer und nie. Between always
and never.
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