Hey There!
Paul's 'First Love', an obsession with his towns cabinet-maker was written in true Aciman fashion. It felt similar to Elio and Oliver's relationship at the beginning of 'Call Me By Your Name', the younger boy pining over the humanity of the other (see quote from page 34) . But Nanni was sweet, he was paternal and though he never indulged in baby Paul's desires it was obvious that he dared to neither squish nor shame them. This became so clear when Nanni and Paul's dad ended up being in love. It felt really full circle and comforting. This story felt the most powerful and daring to me out of Paul's loves.
Paul's 'Star Love' was interesting also. I think that he would say that his Star Love was the love of his life. Though they rarely spoke , always fought and sometimes hated each other there was a soul tie between the two which meant that they could never fall out of love with each other. This one was like an arrow to the heart, I always imagined that that is how love should look. But it was by far the least satisfying to read about. In this section he has a point of showing cheating in a really baffling way. He doesn’t make it seem unethical but rather actively experiencing something new or different, nothing more and nothing bad.
I felt it important to note a quote towards the end of the book when he fashions the lamppost simile (see bold quote below) . The lampposts standing like people in the quadrangle of his soul place presents to me almost as a Charles Dickens like version of the Christmas Carol or a TS Elliot Hollow man moment where his past selves, current self and versions of him that never materialised stood and watched him drink from the wine of life with his star love.
Once again I felt like I was reading an epic and not a romance novel. This book was so beautiful and raw. The way Aciman explores the pure fluidity of sexual desire in a shameless way paints a utopic vision for the future of love in a world that embraces the beauty of gender without using it as a prison. It shows a alternative present where experiencing feelings to their height, their capacity is the most beautiful form of self love.
MY TABS:
- "I wanted to come back on the morrow and work with him, sit face-to-face with him as we'd done today, and occasionally draw closer to him to get a whiff of his underarms, which smelled like mine but much stronger" page 34
- "which is the beauty of assumptions: they anchor us without the slightest clue that what we're doing is trusting that nothing changes. We believe that the street we live on will remain the same and bear its name forever. We believe that our friends will stay our friend, and that those we love we'll love forever. We trust and, by dint of trusting, forget we trusted" page 38
- "Ill do exactly what the Brits did when they broke the Germans' Enigma code during the war. They knew when and where the Germans were planning bombing raids. But they refrained from stepping up defenses for fear of giving away that they had decrypted the enemy's code" page 97
- " 'We're all a bit like that aren't we? Like Sicily, I mean" ... 'We lead lives, nurse more identities than we care to admit, are given all manner of names, when in fact one, and one only is good enough' " page 107
- "My passion feeds on everything but air, then curdles like bad milk that never goes bad enough. It just sits there" page 132
- "I looked at your face and it was the face of someone with a scar on his inner right thigh. It made you so human. It loved you human. I wanted to hold you" page 151
- "...when we stared at each other in the way she wanted and has taught me to want, she and I were one life, one voice, one big, timeless something broken up into two meaningless parts called people. Two trees grafted into each other by nature, by longing, by time itself" page 184
- "Yes the past is a foreign country... but some of us are full-fledged citizens, others occasional tourists and some floating itinerants, itching to get out yet always aching to return" page 193
- “There is a life that takes place in ordinary time… And another that bursts in but just suddenly fizzles out. And then there is a life we may never reach that could so easily be ours if only we knew how to find it. It doesn’t necessarily happen on our planet but it’s just as real as the one we live – call it our star life” page 195
- "I have drunk from the wine of life as last" page 195
- “Learn to see what’s not always there to be seen and maybe then you’ll become someone” page 197
- “Regret is how we hope to back into our real lives once we find the will, the blind drive and courage, to trade in the life we’re given for the life the bears our name and only ours. regret is how we look forward to things we’ve lost yet never really had. Regret is hope without conviction, I said. We are torn between regret, which is the price to pay for things not done, and remorse, which is the cost for having done them. Between one and the other, time plays its cosy little tricks” Page 188
- “They understood so many, many things about me and in ways I might never fathom. And for a moment I thought they were not just lampposts but a collection of blazing selves shifting about in the cold, no different from nine head lit skittles, my nine lives, my unborn, unlived, unfinished nine selves asking whether they might be invited too or what to do with themselves if their time hadn’t come” page 232
- “Star love, my love, star love. It may not live but never dies. It’s the only thing I’m taking with me, and you will too, when the time comes” page 233
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