JOURNAL QUESTIONS & IDEAS for
by
André Aciman
“We had found the stars, you and I. And this is given only once.” - Elio p.244
Call Me By Your Name
This work was created for educational purposes only as a study companion for the novel: Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman
This EnglishCaddy™ Document was created by Gregg Robert Salters and is available for free through ENG LI S H C ADD Y P UB LI C AT IO N S Strasbourg, France 2018
Journal Questions for Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman by Gregg R. Salters is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. . To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. To obtain copies of this document visit www.EnglishCaddy.org/CallMeByYourName.htm
The 2009 Grove Atlantic Ltd. imprint of Atlantic Books of Call Me By Your Name (ISBN: 978-1-78659-525-9) was used as reference in the creation of this study companion and can be purchased through http://www.atlantic-books.co.uk or at most major booksellers.
C ar nal, c er eb ral . Originally published in 2007, Call Me By Your Name has seen a recent resurgence in popularity with the release of 2017 film of the same name and has hit the New York Times Bestseller for a second time since its release in 2007. The popularity of the novel and the film needs little explanation, simply put, the relatable characters and their story resonate and live on in the minds, hearts and emotions of those who read the book or seen the film. Th e Boo k a n d Film When it comes to film adaptations of books, we commonly hear “the book was better than the movie”. While it is true that the book is always richer than its cinematic counterpart, in the case of Call Me By Your Name, the film, adapted by James Ivory and directed by Luca Guadagnino, equally captures the languorous emotions of desire and the angst of young burgeoning love in the bucolic setting of a steamy Italian summer where – through the fault of youth – restless moments persist seemingly forever. The film complements and captures the book in every way possible. Like Oliver and Elio, they enrich each other. So, if you’ve read the book, you should watch the film, and if you’ve watched the film, you should read the book. Doing both will only deepen your connection with the characters, the story, and yourself. W hy e x pe rie nce t his b ook ? The question could also be asked, “why read any book?”. Books are a way of getting to know ourselves by experiencing the lives of others. In Call Me By Your Name, the tapestry is so rich, and the emotions so true and raw that we are easily transported to an Italian summer in 1987 and live the life of Elio. His experience becomes our experience, and our experiences fold in with emotional intensity of the novel’s narrative. We bring the emotional memory of our own history. Without doubt and even if we’ve tucked it away somewhere, we all remember our years of angst as we struggled with our self-confidence and our desire to be accepted as we forged our identities. We all remember our first true love and our awakening sexual desires. We all remember those magical summers before the weight of the responsibilities of adulthood overwhelmed the innocent days of our youths. These residual memories allow us to see our own similar experiences in this book, and in this book, they become condensed, then magnified and intensified and we reexperience our lightheartedness, our youth, our self-discovery, our angst, our self-doubt and our pain. And in their purest, these heightened feelings forged in our teenage years are the very same ones that we spend the rest of our lives trying to refind, to recreate, to recapture, and to relive, are found in this book. Ho w to pr oce e d: It’s simple, read the book, enjoy the story, devour its prose, ponder its meaning, reflect on yourself and live the lives of Elio and Oliver during an amative Italian summer. Then when you’ve finished the novel, use the questions and activities in this booklet to help you reflect and respond to the work of literature you’ve just experienced. Th e m ost im port ant! The most important thing is to enjoy what you read. If the story fascinates you and piques your imagination, then learning becomes innate.
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Table of Contents Reflective Questions ... Passage Journal ............... “My 17th Summer” ................. Responding to Events.. Final Thoughts ..................
2 8 9 10 11
List of Main Characters Elio Oliver Mr. P. Mrs. P. Vimini Marzia Mafalda Anchise Chiara
Journal Questions and Activ ities for Call Me By Your Name
By Andre Aciman
1. What is the significance of the title and how does it figure in the novel?
2. How does the way Elio views himself differ from how the other characters view him? His father
Oliver
Marzia
Vimini
2
Journal Questions and Activ ities for Call Me By Your Name
By Andre Aciman 3. Do you agree with Elio’s choices throughout the novel? What would you do differently? Case in point, Elio slipping the note under Oliver’s door after feeling ignored.
4. Do you agree with Oliver’s choices throughout the novel? What would you do differently?
5. What aspects of Elio’s (or Oliver’s) life could you relate to the most? Have you experienced any similar events as the characters?
3
Journal Questions and Activ ities for Call Me By Your Name
By Andre Aciman 6. Which character of the novel would you most like to meet? What would you like to tell them or what questions would you want to ask?
7. This novel has no discernable antagonist. What do the characters (Elio and Oliver specifically) struggle against?
8. How did Elio and Oliver change by the end of the novel?
4
Journal Questions and Activ ities for Call Me By Your Name
By Andre Aciman 9. What feelings or emotions did you experience while reading?
10. What thoughts or actions of Elio and Oliver illustrate their level of intimacy?
11. On page 240, Elio confesses that the reason he visits Oliver is to tell him that he is the only person he would like to say goodbye to when he dies. Who would that person be in your life?
5
Journal Questions and Activ ities for Call Me By Your Name
By Andre Aciman 12. Did certain parts of the novel make you feel uncomfortable? If so, why do you think you felt that way? Did this lead to a new understanding or awareness of some aspect of your life that you might not have thought about before?
13. Places are important in this novel, they contain memories. For Elio & Oliver, Monet’s berm (already a special place for Elio) is where they first kissed (pp.80-81) and represented their confirmation of their love and desire for each other. Later, when Oliver left to return to the U.S., he took a framed postcard of the berm from Elio’s wall - leaving there an empty space. Talk about a special place that you have in your life, one that contains memories.
14. What is one of your favorite quotes or lines of dialogue from this novel? Hypothetically, if you had to choose a line from the book as a tattoo, which one would you choose? (It’s hypothetical, so length is not an issue.)
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Journal Questions and Activ ities for Call Me By Your Name
By Andre Aciman 15. In what way do you think the characters’ ages inform their actions? If they were of different ages, would things be different?
16. The story takes place in 1987, do you think anything would be different if it took place today?
17. Would you agree with there being a sequel to this novel? If so, what would you like to see? If not, why?
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Journal Questions and Activ ities for Call Me By Your Name
By Andre Aciman
Passages from the novel There’s no doubt that this novel is full of meaningful quotes, in this section list the ones you find the most poignant and what they mean to the characters or to you. Passage and Page
Meaning and Thoughts
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Journal Questions and Activ ities for Call Me By Your Name
By Andre Aciman
My 17th Summer Elio is 17 during the summer when he meets and falls in love with Oliver. Think back to your 17th summer, or even last summer, and write about the events or the experiences you had. Think about things you experienced for the first time, magical or special moments and connections you had with others.
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Journal Questions and Activ ities for Call Me By Your Name
By Andre Aciman
Responding In this activity, identify and relate to some of the situations encountered by the characters in the novel. Choose situations from the novel that you yourself may have similarly experienced. Briefly describe them in the left column and in the right express how they made you feel when you read them. Situations/events in the novel
My feelings/reactions
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Responding to Literature How do you feel? Use this page as an open writing page to discuss any of your final thoughts about this book. Or, you could use this page to write a letter from Oliver to Elio, or from Elio to Oliver.