In Call Me By Your Name, we were introduced to Elio and Oliver, and their torrid love affair during one summer in Italy, as well as the years that have passed afterwards. This time, in Find Me, the story picks up from where the previous book had left off, letting readers into the lives of the main characters during the years that follow. And yes, there is a happy ending. Although this time, the focus is less toward Elio and Oliver, but more toward the human condition in general. Let me explain.
The book opens with a focus on Samuel, Elio's father. We learn what happened to the Perlman family: Elio grows up and studies music, Samuel (the father) and the mother eventually drift off and separate. Now, an older Samuel finds himself in a train from Florence to Rome, where he meets Miranda, a considerably younger woman, and somehow, they start a relationship. As the years go by, they even have a child together.
The second section of the book then focuses on Elio and his love affair with Michel, a considerably older man. During his relationship, several threads point back to his first love affair, that with Oliver, all hinting that even though they have split years before, somehow it seems like that story is still unfinished. Later on, in the book's third section, the focus is then on Oliver, this time a married academic on a sabbatical in New York, preparing to return to New Hampshire, yet during this farewell scene, thoughts about Elio from the past linger, as every subtle detail in the present seem to point him to the past.
I am not going to talk about the final section, but yes, it definitely provides closure.
In the previous book, the focus was just on Elio and Oliver. This time, the focus was extended to other people, like Samuel and Miranda. And like Elio, all of the characters here have torrid rapturous emotional moments. And when I read these, I wonder why I am not the same. These people are so expressive, so intense, they wear their hearts on their sleeves, and yes, they get hurt. This was the exact same thought I had when I was reading Call Me By Your Name. Somehow, Aciman really knows how to express human emotions and shape it into something arousing and erotic, and because of this, I found the book very hard to put down.
I am disturbed a little bit that the focus was blurred and so there was a part of me that thought it was a little bit all over the place. I didn't quite understand why the section about Samuel took pretty much half of the book, when I was expecting a story about Elio and Oliver. I mean, yes, it was a book about Elio and Oliver, yet you just piece these aspects from the little bits and pieces that fall from the sideways: Oliver was just an afterthought in Elio's section, where it focused more on Elio's and Michel's relationship. The same can be said the other way around, in Oliver's section. And yes, it goes full circle and eventually the two men find each other again, yet the reader is forced to fill in the blanks, so to speak. Then again, there is a beauty to that approach.
Overall I did enjoy this book, although perhaps not as much as I did the first one. Nevertheless, I think I would recommend it to others. And yes, Aciman does know how to write about the human condition. I give this 4 out of 5 stars.
See my other book reviews here.
