Giovanni's Room (1953)

i had been both looking forward to and dreading reading this book for a long time. i was dreading it because i've only read one thing written by baldwin before (another country) and so loved it that i was afraid of reading another of his books. i was looking forward to it for the same reason, with hope and expectation. i'm so relieved to say that not only was i not disappointed, but i was exhilarated reading this. his writing is truly beautiful, and his story - the passion and the pain of the main character - was both riveting and gut wrenching. all of it, this was a wonderful read. i only wish that i was reading it in a better frame of mind, that i could have had the time and mental capacity to sit and really savor this book, because it deserves it. and i would have enjoyed it even more if i'd been able to do that. it's a short, easy, flowing read that shouldn't take much time at all; i'm already looking forward to reading it again.

his story is about a man trying to come to terms with his homosexual feelings, but it doesn't have to be about just that. it's about anything that we lie to ourselves about; it's about how we judge others for the life they lead; it's about how we think of home and what home is to us; it's about how we hurt those we love intentionally and unintentionally. it's about so many things as well as being an exploration of homosexuality in the 50's. i loved this book.


a quote i kept coming back to, as i'm working through issues of grief:

"Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I don't know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming sword. Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it. Either, or: it takes strength to remember, it takes another kind of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do both. People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare."

"'Somebody,' said Jacques, 'your father or mine, should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour - and in the oddest places! - for the lack of it.'"

"'Ah!' she said, 'men may be at the mercy of women - I think men like that idea, it strokes the misogynist in them. But if a particular man is ever at the mercy of a particular woman - why, he's somehow stopped being a man. And the lady, then, is more neatly trapped than ever.'" ( )

have ebook version

This story is incredibly well-structured. Knowing the end immediately casts a pall on the entire story; regret, certainly, and more than that, cruelty. The narrator immediately becomes a coward, Guillaume a predator and Jacques a selfish lout. However, Baldwin never falls into the trap of stereotypes; David's palpable guilt, Jacques' sudden generosity as he follows Giovanni to the grave, all make the characters complex. Most complex, of course, is Giovanni himself, caught in his terrible secret and pain, aching to be loved as he is and not simply for his beauty.
The room as a backdrop to all this confusion is in itself a character: small, dingy, oppressive, secret yet full of desperate hope and potential as Giovanni tries to turn it into a haven of peace and light.
Marvelous and heart-wrenching. ( )

This novel was published in 1956, two years after Brown v Board of Education and 8 years before African Americans were given the right to vote in the U.S. Gloria Steinem was 22 years old and the Stonewall "riots" were still 13 years away. Gay people lived deeply secret double lives, terrified of exposure in this life and damnation in the next.

David, our narrator, is a young American vaguely living in the South of France, reflecting on his time living in Paris, where he loved both a woman and a man. Giovanni, his true love, is in prison and facing the guillotine for a murder whose motives we may only hypothesize. Apart from the masterful storytelling, what is remarkable about this novel is that it was written by Baldwin in the 1950s. He explores the deep shame, self-loathing, and terror experienced by queer folks living -- even in Paris -- during that time. Also interesting, race appears to "play no part" in the story. Baldwin's characters are decidedly white and it is their love that marginalizes them and dilutes their sense of identity. Nationality, sexual orientation, and gender are the identities in question here, the facets of self that generate need and lust and heart-wrenching angst. Yet, with all this, the novel is not depressing. It's sad. And it's captivating. And it's beautiful. Giovanni's room works with precision as a metaphor for the container of all our desires. Without that room, what does contain our desires? ( )

זה דרש אומץ - גם כושי וגם הומוסקסואל, וכישרון וגם ​ ( )