thelovelybonesb:

In “Mystery of Love” there’s the verse:

“Like Hephaestion who died,

Alexander’s lover”

It refers to the story of Alexander The Great and one of his most trusted generals, Hephaestion, who was presumably his lover. No matter his heroic acts or his importance in Alexander’s conquests, Hephaestion is always remembered only for his relationship with Alexander.

In Call Me By Your Name we see Oliver only through his relationship with Elio.

Oliver doesn’t exist as an independent and full entity: he exist only to serve Elio’s story. We see Elio on his own, learn about his life before and after he meets Oliver, (we know his last name), instead we know nothing about the Oliver who isn’t Elio’s lover.

This is so much clear in the last chapter of the book, when the two lovers meet again. Elio panics at the prospect of seeing Oliver’s family, because if he met them, “Elio’s lover” would become “someone’s husband” / “the boys father”. He can’t accept that there is a place and time where Oliver isn’t his lover and calls those moments when they are separated “a coma”, as if they are alive only when they are together, rejecting Oliver’s explanation of “parallel lives”.

And because we read the book from Elio’s perspective we also reject any other form of Oliver: he is and will forever be only Elio’s lover.

Concluding with another verse from “Mystery of Love”, both Hephaestion and Oliver are

“Cursed by the love I received”

to be forever remembered only as their lover’s lover.

(Fuente: thelovelybess)