Harvard Square

Ce n'est pas le meilleur roman de Aciman. Trop dispersé, trop de personnages. Kalaj est trop schématique. Il n'y a qu'à partir du milieu qu'on commence à s'intéresser vraiment à l'histoire. La construction est moins rigoureuse. Peut être une œuvre de jeunesse qu'on ressortit des tiroirs après le succès de "Call me your name"! Évidemment si je n'avais pas lu les autres romans de AA, j'aurais probablement aimé celui-ci. Je l'ai quand même lu jusqu'au bout sans ma forcer!! Aussi, je ne connais pas Cambridge ou Boston comme je connais les lieux évoqués dans les autres œuvres de AA. Ici je suis moins sensible à la nostalgie des lieux qui est un élément important dans le charme de l'écriture de AA, plus Modiano que Proust.

It's hard not to love Aciman's style and way with words, he writes so beautifully that I could be swept along by any story crafted by him. This novel is perhaps not for everyone because it is very minimal in terms of plot and requires patience from the reader. It is a meditation on friendship, youth and the denial of the true self and how this can harm us. Aciman's style is, as always, evocative of a time and a place that seems familiar - there is a universality in his work, but it is still deeply personal to him. His heart is on the page. I saw myself and people I have known in the story; he is a master of crafting memorable and complex characters, and this is worth reading just to get to know them.

I loved the bookspent a whole weekend reading and drinking tea.very nice lecture for autumn. would definitely recommend!

"Harvard Square" is a book about a Harvard graduate student, an Egyptian-born Jew, struggling between two worlds - that of the intellectual elite and that of his homeland; it is a struggle which he doesn't quite realize until the summer of 1977 when he meets Kalaj, a Tunisian-born cab driver whose struggles are much grittier than his own and whose vocal cultural criticisms put him at odds with those around him. A chance meeting at a Cambridge cafe sparks an unlikely friendship, and a clash between worlds for the narrator, who finds himself at odds between his academic obligations and those of friendship.I found this book to be a very honest dissection of human nature - Aciman is skilled at stripping away the niceties people proclaim from what they actually mean underneath it, and carefully and skillfully exposes their motives and flaws for the reader to see. It's a book that exposes the hypocrisy of feeling that one's culture is superior, all the while wanting nothing more to assimilate; it's also about the proclamation of independence and yet fearing nothing more than feeling alone in the world. This is a book that you won't want to put down, and as it ends, you'll share the narrator's wistful longing. I thoroughly enjoyed this book; it was not only a fascinating read but a book that will leave you thinking and searching at the end.

I've read it in a few days with interest and pleasure. It's well written; the only negative remark is that sometimes it seems to stretch situations a bit too long.