PositiveThe Washington PostAciman explores this electric tension by interrupting his protagonists’ daily routines with, variously, a holiday, jury duty and an academic fellowship ...
I turn to Aciman for his immersive, fluid, lucid language and compelling characterization. Although this new collection left me wanting more of both, there is still much to mull over and admire in it. This trio of stories finds tenderness through intricate repetition while stacking literary references like layers in the napoleon that one of Aciman’s couples share. Aciman’s fans will welcome, as I did, how the triptych picks up his recurrent phrases and themes of attention, longing and chance. Part of the thrill in reading someone as prolific as Aciman lies in recognizing his obsessions. Others will find that Room on the Sea offers a set of languid beach reads, tales that feel like preludes to restorative dreams ... While a few of Paul and Catherine’s musings run long, I enjoyed the sweetness and subtext in their banter ... Aciman captures her sentiment stylistically by the seamless way his third-person point of view switches from Paul to Catherine, sometimes within the same paragraph ... One of this story’s pleasures is how the impromptu paramours draw out long-dormant selves, making up for lost experiences with wide-ranging conversation reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s Before films. Both are grandparents, and theirs is not a courtship that pulls them toward lifelong marriage or children. But if Paul and Catherine wonder about what might have been, Aciman also suggests that lacking traditional goals makes their bond no less meaningful ... Mariana, the most visceral of the novellas, further challenges the degree to which time can serve as a measure of love ...
For those chasing the enthralling elegance that distinguished much of Aciman’s earlier work, the matter-of-fact prose in The Gentleman From Peru might disappoint. Raúl’s stretches of dialogue pursue interesting notions, but they don’t engage enough with the characters around him. The omniscient third-person narrator dips into the minds of several people without sufficiently conveying the inner world of any one person, clipping potential moments of emotional resonance ... Still, the three novellas taken together put forward intriguing ideas about what constitutes connection. Aciman’s appreciation of imperfect, unconventional relationships feels refreshing, even in our unsettled era. Through subtle observations and gentle narrative arcs, he maintains that crushes and heartaches are as urgent as any of the crises that face us. He has a gift for choreographing intimacy. In all three stories, Aciman builds heat slowly, gesture by gesture. Manner, not looks, tends to captivate his characters.
