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boxoffruit's review against another edition
4.0
“everything i read seems more in me already than on the pages themselves” a big thank you to aciman for perfectly describing my feelings about this collection and saving me from having to generate a coherent thought
lectrice's review against another edition
4.0
An eerie read for the pandemic: Aciman’s lovely personal essays about memory and travel (including several about Italy) already feel like they belong to a very different time and sensibility than our current situation. Wanderlust porn, escapism for the bookish traveler...
jar7709's review against another edition
4.0
Some of these essays I loved, some of my favorites ever--"My Monet Moment", "Self Storage", and "Empty Rooms" I feel will stay with me a long time. Others were too much rhapsodizing about glamorous places I wish I could visit and I skipped through a few pages in. I sure wish I could write like Mr. Aciman, though, even so.
stellacravo's review against another edition
2.0
i really struggled to finish this one. the first chapter is perfection but the rest.... some really nice quotes here and there but i was sleepy the whole book
meghankristine's review against another edition
2.0
I can appreciate this for how well it was written, but I’ve also learned that collections of essays just aren’t for me.
Oh well.
Oh well.
chahna's review against another edition
3.0
Okay, I'll be honest: I did not finish this book.
When I started it I absolutely loved it, the first few essays made me want to read on and on. But as I progressed I found myself frustrated with his travelogues. It (to me) just felt like a presentation of his linguistics skill, his knowledge of the classics, and places, and the sheer privilege.
To be fair, this is extraordinary writing. I am always in awe of Aciman's prose. He might be my favorite writer, he's THAT good. It was so beautiful, but I could not take too much of it. Maybe I will revisit it later sometime and appreciate the later essays as much as I did his writing.
When I started it I absolutely loved it, the first few essays made me want to read on and on. But as I progressed I found myself frustrated with his travelogues. It (to me) just felt like a presentation of his linguistics skill, his knowledge of the classics, and places, and the sheer privilege.
To be fair, this is extraordinary writing. I am always in awe of Aciman's prose. He might be my favorite writer, he's THAT good. It was so beautiful, but I could not take too much of it. Maybe I will revisit it later sometime and appreciate the later essays as much as I did his writing.
quintusmarcus's review against another edition
4.0
In his novel Eight White Nights, Andre Aciman's narrator says, "...longing makes us who we are, makes us better than who we are, because longing fills the heart. ... The way absence and sorrow and mourning fill the heart." In the same way, the highly personal essays in Alibis explore the world of the author's memory: "It is not the things we long for that we love; it is longing itself--just as it is not what we remember but remembrance itself that we love." In the essays of Alibis the author remembers Paris, Rome, and Alexandria. There is a gentle sorrow at the core of Aciman's work, the sorrow, I think, of the exile. Aciman was born in Egypt in a French-speaking home where family members also spoke Italian, Greek, Ladino, and Arabic. His family were Jews of Turkish and Italian origin who settled in Alexandria, Egypt in 1905. Aciman moved with his family to Italy at the age of fifteen and then to New York at nineteen, and he currently teaches literature in New York.
In his essay Temporizing, Aciman addresses his tendency directly: "What gives meaning to a life so clearly inscribed in temporizing is not someone's ability to confront pain, sorrow, or loss, but rather someone's ability to craft ways around pain, sorrow, loss. It is the craft that makes life meaningful, not the life itself." In Lavendar, the author uses fragrance as a springboard into his memories of youth, family, and place. Everywhere in his writing, he seeks the "shadow of the past", the world experienced at a "slight angle". Aciman "writes around" his past, and his essays are a remarkable exercise in the power of restraint. Thoughtful and beautiful writing, but very carefully distant.
In his essay Temporizing, Aciman addresses his tendency directly: "What gives meaning to a life so clearly inscribed in temporizing is not someone's ability to confront pain, sorrow, or loss, but rather someone's ability to craft ways around pain, sorrow, loss. It is the craft that makes life meaningful, not the life itself." In Lavendar, the author uses fragrance as a springboard into his memories of youth, family, and place. Everywhere in his writing, he seeks the "shadow of the past", the world experienced at a "slight angle". Aciman "writes around" his past, and his essays are a remarkable exercise in the power of restraint. Thoughtful and beautiful writing, but very carefully distant.