It is often said that a movie is never as good as the book, and that watching the cinematic adaptation of a book makes all your private imaginations lose a little of their identity. This was a similar experience, reading the book after having seen the (wonderful) cinematic adaptation. It was difficult to enjoy at first. I felt like victim of déjà vu, repeating old scenes that were not mine. I could not invent these characters in my mind for I had already seen who they were, and I was merely waiting for events to happen.
Nevertheless, I persevered and finally, towards the end the book developed beyond its visual and audio constraints. The words seemed to release two meandering butterflies out of a cage, and I had the pleasure of watching them meander and stumble in the air. And stumble indeed, because this novel describes life and love with beautiful realism. Aciman’s work knows itself, and knows that it gains power not by generating events of significance, but by acknowledging the meanderings and stumblings of life and love. A pleasure to finish.