12 Matching Annotations
  1. Jul 2024
    1. owthoroughly trenchant was his ability to sort contradictory signals, I have nodoubt that he must have already suspected something.

      BECAUSE HE HIMSELF IS CONTRADICTORY!

    2. After I had finished explaining my transcription, I became aware ofthe keenest glance coming from my left. It thrilled and flattered me; he wasobviously interested—he liked me. It hadn’t been as difficult as all that,then. But when, after taking my time, I finally turned to face him and takein his glance, I met a cold and icy glare—something at once hostile andvitrified that bordered on cruelty.

      very clear contradictions in Oliver here.

  2. Jun 2024
    1. even after my colortheory was entirely disproved and gave me no confidence to expectkindness on “blue” days or to watch out for “red” days

      Explicit evidence that his colour theory never worked. Oliver cannot be condensed

    2. 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.

  3. May 2024
    1. He had never had apricotjuice in his life. She stood facing him with her salver flat against her apron,trying to make out his reaction as he quaffed it down. He said nothing atfirst. Then, probably without thinking, he smacked his lips.

      He just downed a glass of his own fluid, and enjoyed it... Does this mean love and sexual desire is a desire targeted at loving oneself?

    2. The Latin word was praecoquum, from pre-coquere, pre-cook, toripen early, as in ‘precocious,’ meaning premature

      Apricots are compared to "blushing with shame, shame comes with age" and then directly referenced to Oliver's butt. Clearly representing Oliver with age and reference to his butt, so it characterizes Oliver as two things; shameful, and "premature" and "ripen early", which is ironic considering his age -- what does this say about youth, identity, and contradictions?

    3. “I know myself. If I have three, I’ll have a fourth, and more.” I had neverheard someone his age say, I know myself. It intimidated me

      This is exactly what Elio lacks and tries to find in himself, a holistic idea of who he is and when Oliver demonstrates his many contradictions with yet the fact that he "knows himself", it intimidates and spins Elio's worldview.

    4. Oliver timido? That was new. Could all of his gruff Americanisms benothing more than an exaggerated way of covering up the simple fact thathe didn’t know—or feared he didn’t know—how to take his leavegracefully?

      New revelation that there is more to the gruffness of Oliver as one has thought. At the same time, gruffness and timidity coexist harmoniously in this Muvi Star

    5. 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

    6. 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

  4. Apr 2024
    1. 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.

    2. 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.