- Last 7 days
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Only once during his very first few days did I get a sense that thiswillful but accommodating, laid-back, water-over-my-back, unflappable,unfazed twenty-four-year-old who was so heedlessly okay with so manythings in life was, in fact, a thoroughly alert, cold, sagacious judge ofcharacter and situations
Example of Oliver holding contradictions, and Elio's noticing of this, because Elio loves his multidimensionality
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My father told him his insights into Heraclitus were brilliantbut needed firming up, that he needed to accept the paradoxical nature ofthe philosopher’s thinking, not simply explain it away. He was okay withfirming things up, he was okay with paradox. Back to the drawing board—he was okay with the drawing board as well.
He was OK with the paradox. It signifies he could accept himself, too, in all his discontinuity and multidimensionality
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- Apr 2024
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A few hourslater, when I remembered that he had just finished writing a book onHeraclitus and that “reading” was probably not an insignificant part of hislife, I realized that I needed to perform some clever backpedaling and lethim know that my real interests lay right alongside his
Oliver wrote a book on Heraclitus, the main connector between his ideology, characterization, and the theory of universal flux, that one may not necessarily be one's past temporal part -- but one who continues it, like an illusion of movement.
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I had put reading last on my list, thinking that, with the willful, brazenattitude he’d displayed so far, reading would figure last on his.
An assumption, like many others (such as the bathing suit situation) about Oliver's identity that is quickly refuted, because identities never make sense. A person as a whole cannot be summarized in rules or statements or if.. then.. conditions.
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soles, of his throat, of the bottom of his forearms, which hadn’t really beenexposed to much sun. Almost a light pink, as glistening and smooth as theunderside of a lizard’s belly. Private, chaste, unfledged, like a blush on anathlete’s face or an instance of dawn on a stormy night. It told me thingsabout him I never knew to ask
Motif of skin introduced in CMBYN, where Oliver's duality of skin, tanned, and pink and untouched represents the multidimensionality of identity, and the contradictions that exist within him -- which is what fascinates Elio. The coexistence of both contradictions in such a beautiful, whole, masterpiece who has affinities leaping out of him is enlightening for Elio. Elio may see Oliver as an Elio who he wishes to mature into.
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