BOOKS May 2021

A historical novel set among an Italian Jewish community in the late 1930s, this book has lyrical descriptive passages and a moving elegiac storyline. We know from the outset that the family dies in the Holocaust only a few years after the story takes place. The narrator, a young middle-class Jew in the Italian city of Ferrara, has long been fascinated by the Finzi-Continis, a wealthy and aristocratic Jewish family, and especially by their charming daughter Micol. Our narrator first meets Micol when she stands on a ladder, leaning over the wall which stands between them – and it’s years before he manages to cross that barrier. And even when he does, he is forced to put himself outside it again, the proximity it creates to his idol who cannot be possessed becomes too overwhelming, too claustrophobic, too dangerous. It brilliantly embeds a personal memory of first love into a specific historical and social context – the condition of Italian Jews in the late 1930s. 

“There is no silence like sitting in a fog at sea and listening,” writes Tove Jansson in her newly-translated story collection Fair Play. “Large boats can loom up suddenly, and you don’t hear the bow water in time to start your motor and get out of the way.” This is a beautiful book about two real-life women and the space between them. It tells the story of two women, Mari and Jonna, artists who have lived and worked together for over 30 years. Now in their 70s they have arrived at an equilibrium, a rhythm of life that suits them. They alternate between the quietude of their shared home – with an attic separating their living spaces – and the adventures of world travel. Their relationship is told in vignettes describing their work and life in a seaside house and their constant engagement with different art forms: film, painting, literature, and photography. Each story is 3 or 4 pages and is like being given an intimate glimpse into the lives of these wonderful creatives.

Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy, Elio, and a summer guest at his parents’ cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Oliver is carefree and detached—a strong contrast to Elio’s introversion. Upon Oliver’s arrival, Elio is drawn to him but doesn’t quite understand why, taking special care to give him a nice tour of the town and paying close attention to the way he presents himself. Eventually, Elio comes to understand that he’s attracted to Oliver, but he can’t bring himself to act upon his feelings. Instead, he tries to hide his emotions while simultaneously hoping Oliver will do something to acknowledge the energy flowing between them. “In thirty, forty years, I’ll come back here and think back on a conversation I knew I’d never forget, much as I might want to someday. I’d come here with my wife, my children, show them the sights, point to the bay, the local caffès, Le Danzing, the Grand Hotel. Then I’d stand there and ask the statue and the straw-backed chairs and shaky wooden tables to remind me of someone called Oliver.” Aciman’s style is both dreamy and microscopic: lovely long sentences describing a place, a series of feelings, one feeling described like an event, and then the feeling changes. Beautifully written and extraordinary lyrical.