Find Me

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

The Passing of Time

In Find Me, Aciman explores the significance of the passing of time. Time is a major preoccupation of the human psyche. Acknowledgment of aging and mortality, emphasized by the fleeting nature of happiness in life, makes people hyperaware of time slipping by. For the older characters in this novel, time feels cruel. Though Samuel in Part 1, Michel in Part 2, and Oliver in Parts 3 and 4 aren’t elderly, they are at a point in their lives where they worry that the future will be devoid of adventure and passion. Such emotional extremes seem like a characteristic of youth. But in Find Me, Aciman emphasizes the message that one is never too old to fall in love, start a new chapter, and reinvigorate one’s life.

In Part 1, “Tempo,” Samuel Perlman worries that his best years are long behind him. He has a stable life, but that stability breeds a lack of fulfillment. He has a successful career as a classics scholar, a son who is grown and independent and with whom he is close, and a home in Italy. Samuel is at peace with his divorce and satisfied with his life. But satisfaction is not happiness. When Miranda randomly enters his life, Samuel is astounded by the ways in which his concerns about time can melt away. Certain feelings, like love or passion, transcend age. Though there is a considerable age difference between Samuel and Miranda, their soulful connection highlights the possibility of love in defiance of time. In the context of their relationship, age is just a number. But time and age are more complex than societal norms around ageism and love. For Samuel, discovering passion at his age is a transcendent experience because it’s the type of passion he longed for since his youth. While he long believed that he missed out on passion because of a youth lost to love that wasn’t all-encompassing, what he learns is that he needed to wait for decades to find the kind of passion he was searching for.

In Part 2, “Cadenza,” Michel experiences a similar disillusionment with adulthood until he meets Elio, who revives his capacity for pleasure and passion. The title “Cadenza,” which refers to a improvisational aside in classical music, emphasizes the message that time is not linear and stagnant. Rather, just as the cadenza can mold and adapt other sources of music, life can be unpredictable and perpetually exciting. Elio doesn’t struggle with his age, but he does struggle to understand his life in terms of time. Elio is happy to go with the flow of his life; his identity as an artist requires flexibility, which is exciting to him. Yet Elio too thinks back in time, not because he was happier when he was younger but because the love and passion that he identifies with his youth no longer exist in his adulthood. Through Michel, Elio learns that this lack of passion is not due to his age or to time passing. Instead, Elio learns that not having Oliver in his life is the factor that makes his life absent of overwhelming passion and understanding. Another example of the symbolic importance of the passing of time is Elio’s discovery of Ariel Waldstein’s story. Ariel could easily have been lost to history; few people remember him, and his assumption of a non-Jewish name, Léon, makes his life even harder to trace. But Ariel was a gifted musician, a man of great fortitude, a lover, and a human being with complexities. Death in the Holocaust turned Ariel into another statistic. In rediscovering his music and finding his identity, Elio pays Ariel honor and defies the passage of time.

When people define their lives by the time they’ve spent, it’s easy to overlook the many people and places they’ve experienced. In Aciman’s novel, life experience is more important than the number of years it takes to go through those experiences. An obsession with time and age can lead to resentments and dissatisfaction, but embracing living life in the moment dissolves the importance of time, a human construct. Aciman essentially obliterates time in this novel by revealing that it does not necessarily determine happiness, growth, sadness, or ambition.

Memory and Nostalgia

Aciman first introduced readers to Elio, Oliver, and Samuel in his 2007 novel Call Me by Your Name. While Find Me can be read as a standalone work, for readers of Call Me by Your Name and audiences of its film adaptation, reading Find Me is itself an act of nostalgia. Find Me revisits moments and echoes symbols from Call Me by Your Name. As an author, Aciman revisiting the characters of his previous novel is a practice in reinvigorating memory and reveling in the power of nostalgia.

In Find Me, setting is an important narrative device for developing nostalgia. Rome is a nostalgic setting for Elio because it is the first place he felt free to explore his sexuality with Oliver publicly and also the first place where he was inspired to become an artist. Elio’s vigils with his father, in which they walk around the city and visit Elio’s treasured street corners, cafés, and bookstores, is a tradition of nostalgia. This nostalgia nurtures Elio’s close relationship with Samuel, but it also nourishes Elio’s memories. Revisiting scenes of nostalgia proves that certain experiences really did happen and that they remain as important throughout time as they felt in the present. Rome is also a nostalgic setting for Samuel because he was once young and single, living in Rome and dreaming about love. Samuel revisits his old apartment building and brings Miranda to see how far he’s come. In a way, Samuel is still that romantic classics scholar in Rome. The immutability of Rome and the nostalgia it symbolizes highlights the idea that time may pass, but people remain intrinsically the same. This brings some comfort to Samuel, who worries that time made him a less inspired and adventurous person.

In Part 2, the setting of Michel’s family home just outside of Paris also imbues the text with a nostalgic tone. Michel’s house is characterized by the memories of his childhood and the feelings he still associates with his parents, who have passed away. He is haunted by his upbringing because of the familiarity of this space. In sharing this house with Elio, Michel intimately gestures that he trusts and loves him. The house is also a physical home for the memory of Ariel Waldstein, who lives on through his cadenza. Ariel’s life has been lost to time, history, and antisemitism, but in Michel’s home, his music comes alive again on the piano. Elio’s desire to learn more about Ariel parallels his father’s study of the classics. Elio and Samuel both look to history to learn more about the present; they are interested in the dynamics and lives of people in history, which compounds their relationship with memory and nostalgia.

In Part 3, Oliver spends time in his memory. Paul playing the piano brings Oliver back to Elio. In his heart and mind, Elio is still with him, though decades and continents separate them. Nostalgia is a longing for the past, and Oliver’s immediate jump back into his past highlights his capacity to immerse himself in it. Nostalgia is important in Oliver’s character development because he nurtures it enough to transform his life: It bites at him so much that eventually, he leaves his wife and returns to Elio.

When Oliver and Elio get back together in Part 4, they must learn to let go of their reliance on nostalgia. Elio speaks to Oliver about his memories, but Oliver wants to start a new chapter in their relationship. Elio worries that this is because Oliver doesn’t remember as much as he does. In fact, Oliver has sacrificed his former life to be with Elio again, and he learns that sometimes holding on to memories of the past is a painful blockage to living in the present. Thus, memory and nostalgia are important ways of developing character, but they are also factors that can impede growth. The title Find Me is inspired by the final moments of the novel, in which Oliver and Elio confirm that they have both been waiting for the other to find them. Finding each other again is a practice of going back in time, embracing nostalgia as a possibility for the future and not just a memory.

Different Types of True Love and Desire

Aciman’s novel explores different types of true love and desire. In his narrative world, desire and love are not to be confused with societal expectations of heteronormative relationships. Each character in this novel defies society’s standards, standards that threaten to oppress individuals.

When Samuel first meets Miranda, he worries about the optics of showing his attraction for her due to their age difference. Because of her beauty and youth, he assumes that she is accustomed to strangers trying to hit on her. He is careful in their first conversations and second-guesses himself, afraid of coming across as lecherous. But the boundaries of their age difference are quickly dissolved because their connection is undeniable. Miranda doesn’t just not care about the age difference; she understands and appreciates that had she met Samuel when he was younger, he wouldn’t be the person she falls in love with. Their relationship moves quickly, refusing to adhere to standards of propriety. But Samuel and Miranda give in to their love and desire because it’s authentic and all-encompassing. Notably, Elio readily accepts their fast-paced relationship because he too understands the overwhelming sensation of genuine desire. Although their relationship may face moral scrutiny by others, they are open-minded about life and love, which frees them to love one another. It is later revealed that Samuel spends his last years with Miranda and their child, emphasizing the importance of not questioning desire and love, even if it comes in an unconventional form.

Elio and Michel are also in an unconventional relationship. Their age difference and sexuality could put them at odds with societal norms. Yet their connection is profound, and they choose to embrace their desire. Notably, Elio and Michel don’t believe that their relationship will be long-term, but they are happy to spend whatever time they do have together. This is important because Aciman doesn’t only highlight relationships as worthy because of their durability. Relationships that are fleeting but meaningful can be crucial to a person’s development of self.

Michel and Elio have a strong sexual and emotional bond that defies societal expectations. Though Elio is not ashamed of the spectrum of his sexuality, he does note the looks of the waiters at Michel’s favorite restaurant, emphasizing that Elio’s society might be less open-minded about his expressions of sexuality. Notably, Aciman doesn’t label Elio’s sexuality as gay or bisexual. Elio sees his sexuality as inherently natural and boundaryless. This celebrates love and desire as a natural and beautiful part of the human experience.

In Part 3, Oliver pushes the standards of heteronormativity even further. He is drawn to a woman and a man simultaneously, both in separate relationships. Paul and Erica are not prominent people in Oliver’s life; he barely knows them and only from afar. His desire for them is purely physical, and when they are in the same room together, he finds himself fantasizing about having sex with both of them at the same time. Oliver’s sexual proclivities are not at odds with his identity as a family man. He respects and loves his wife and sees her as an integral part of his life. That Oliver can differentiate between desire and love, between monogamy and the possibilities for polygamy, highlights the freedom of his sexuality. Oliver doesn’t always act on his sexual impulses, but they are a part of who he is. His sexuality keeps him in tune with his body and mind. Sexual desire, for Oliver, translates into a philosophical discussion about life, music, love, and nostalgia. Though Oliver is an unconventional narrator, his layers of sexuality demonstrate a freedom of being and an authenticity that sexually repressed narrators wouldn’t be able to achieve.

The finale of the novel sees the reunion of Elio and Oliver. This time, they attempt to reunite for good. Both have lived decades pursuing other partners and lives, but they ultimately come back together again because time and distance have not lessened their love for one another. This is also an untraditional process of relationship building; few have the courage or the opportunity to go back to a lover from their youth. That Oliver is willing to leave his wife and the security of that relationship emphasizes the intensity of his love for Elio. Ultimately, Aciman portrays that relationships are not as neatly boxed in as society dictates them to be. Aciman’s love stories are characterized by risk and passion. Embracing the risk and passion of true love frees the individual. Aciman celebrates love as inherent to the human experience, an experience that shouldn’t be kept within societal boundaries.