Enigma Variations

by Andre Aciman

Paperback, 2018

Status

Available

Call number

0.aciman

Genres

Fiction

Publication

Faber & Faber (2018), Edition: Main, 288 pages

User reviews

LibraryThing member saresmoore

This collection of stories/novel is an intimate and raw reflection on love and relationships through one man's eyes. Each separately titled portion is centered on a particular love interest. Aciman writes with such intimate acuity that the story is alternately passionate and painful. At times I was

even bored by the unfiltered obsessions of the narrator, but drawn into his worldview, nonetheless. Aciman's/the main character's observations and revelations are pure and disarming, unsure and yet plagued by a certainty that only the most intuitive mind can affect.

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LibraryThing member lethalmauve

A messy and frustrating charade of romances cut into five short stories that dims and sharpens in sporadic episodes of lust and love-like gestures. Not even Aciman's bittersweet and striking prose of longing, regret, and nostalgia is enough to salvage this debauchery. It is debauchery under the

guise of captivating romanticisation of human connection which does not completely suffice to rationalize the protagonist's selfishness. Edward Elgar is ashamed. And I am appalled by Paul the protagonist's consistent string of adulterous, sexual escapades while impaling his victims in the process. He is a bloodthirsty person who takes without giving anything or in giving makes certain to take more for himself. I can't call anything here development. Nothing but the repetitive indecisiveness, commitment issues, and immaturity. I may be wrong but I think I've been in love enough times to know that love should not be a ridiculous ideal; destructive and emotionally crippling. There is a subtle hint of repression of homosexual desires. And also, internal homophobia. Surprisingly, his attraction to the same sex feels much genuine than the heterosexual ones. Despite these misgivings, a number of sentiments from Enigma Variations hit home most specially the struggles to define a feeling at the beginning, maintain the feeling, and move on from the feeling. Aciman has a knack on placing so much value in a scent, a meeting of the eyes or say, someone's lingering hand on your shoulders. Those are things of beauty found in Enigma Variations which most of us surely cherish in memory's fervent reminders.

“We loved with every organ but the heart.”

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LibraryThing member therebelprince

I sit on a somewhat uncertain plane with Mr. Aciman's writing. His evident literary strengths: those tiny moments between people that change everything, those oh-so-human experiences of self-doubt and self-discovery, a brilliant understanding of our gradual awareness of Time, a knack for evoking

spirit of place, and always a profound sense of loss. His weaknesses, at least in the novels I've read? Something of a sameness with dialogue, a certain lack of emotional or tonal variety, and perhaps - in this case - a tendency toward the saccharine.

I think I enjoyed Enigma Variations, and I will certainly return to Aciman's erudite, sensual, yearning canon again. But, aside from the first section, I wish the story of Paul's many loves had conjured up an emotional connection in me, and not just an intellectual one. Aciman is a smart writer but he's not a litterateur. He is best when writing "high fiction" rather than "literature", and this feels rather like he's strayed outside his bailiwick.

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