Friendship and the Novel

In his 2016 On Friendship , Alexander Nehamas makes the striking suggestion that there are almost no good novels whose central theme is friendship. This paper retraces and reflects on Nehamas's arguments for why there might be this limitation with the novel. The paper then explores the issue further through one central example: André Aciman's novel Call Me By Your Name (2007). On the interpretation offered here, the novel shows that particularly intense friendships, with an erotic or romantic dimension, can indeed be a successful central subject matter of the novel. Moreover, as also in evidence in Call Me by Your Name , the novel is especially well-positioned to portray and explore the lasting duration of friendships.