I tore through this like a madman and I instantly wanted to read everything else James Baldwin has ever written. This has been on my TBR (to be read for those of you not in the book world) for years, but for some reason, I could never bring myself to start it. I purposely added it to this year’s self-led reading challenge in the hopes that I would find the proper motivation to pick it up, and I’m incredibly thankful that I did.
I’ve read a lot of James Baldwin’s essays and nonfiction, mostly for various classes I took in undergrad. As is anyone, I’m a huge fan of the man and have never failed to find his writing impeccable and oozing with talent. His prose is perfect and gorgeous and stunning, and you can get lost in his treatises and politically charged essays very quickly. I’ve heard some say his work is dense, but I’d disagree with that statement. His purple prose is a bit flowery and borderline superfluous at times, but it makes for grounding and thought-provoking reads.
That being said, I’ve been itching to check out his fiction, and better understand how his work translates into different forms of writing. I will be the first to tell you that this was just as illustrious and gorgeous as the essays of his I’ve read, and perhaps the Parisian setting made it all the more appealing and glamorous to me.
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin | Goodreads
Why Giovanni’s Room?
My TBR is never ending. It grows exponentially with each year and each new release, and I have been struggling throughout the past decade to get through everything I add to it. I believe my Goodreads shelf is over 2000 books long, though I will admit that many were added in eras of my life that I would not consider myself to be a part of anymore.
I’ve always had a strong interest in classic literature, but my knowledge of 20th century fiction is a little shakier than the 19th century and before. I’ve wanted to become a bit more involved in the different styles and forms of literature from this century, and especially focus on authors from marginalized backgrounds or who tackle more specific topics of interest. James Baldwin felt as good a place to start as any.
Going into this, I didn’t have the clearest idea of what to expect. Based on all of the nonfiction work I’ve read from Baldwin, I expected this novel to be a commentary on race, perhaps from a transatlantic perspective given the American protagonist’s journey to Paris, France. However, this novel did not touch on ideas of race and nationality almost at all, and instead was a book about love, at the end of the day.
I haven’t read a lot of LGBTQ+ fiction from before this century. For obvious reasons, it was a much less popular genre and most books from the century before this book that did attempt to tackle such issues were forced into thinly veiled innuendos and references (see: The Picture of Dorian Gray). The open exploration of sex and homoeroticism is perfectly captured in the first chapter of this book, which introduces our main character as tormented and tortured by self-induced shame and internalized homophobia.
There were several moments in here I wanted to remember and for the first time in a long time, I found myself actively saving quotes and color-coding them with different tabs. I was very intrigued by the protagonist’s seeming hatred of himself and his proclivities, and his inability to leave Giovanni’s room behind. The connection between David and Giovanni ebbs and flows depending on our main character’s personal conflicts and self-acceptance or lack thereof. You want to believe in their love, which seems to transcend boundaries and everything that could act as an obstacle, and you want to tell yourself, yes, this can happen, and this is happening, and this is beautiful and real and raw. Then David pops out with some crazy line about how he hates himself or Giovanni or any of the other characters who clearly have reached a stronger place of security within their sexuality and you remember that the main obstacle is David himself.
Shame and sexuality
The constant manipulation of the people around him and David’s obvious disgust of their lifestyle, a lifestyle he himself also partakes in, is very interesting. We explore these manipulative relationships through Jacques. Shame acts as the guiding center of this novel. The entire piece focuses on the different ways shame can guide a person into doing one thing or another. We have David, who is solely focused on his shame to the point where he gives himself away into it to the detriment of his own self and desires and pleasures. We conversely have Giovanni, who seems to cast off all shame, or at least the type of shame that is so powerful and all-encompassing for David. The juxtaposition between these two men and the conflicting manifestations of shame brings out the tragedy of the novel.
America
Set primarily in Paris, this book navigates what it means to be American quite a bit more than I expected it to. David represents the White American Male to a tee, and his life and reality in Paris acts as a perfect counterpoint to that underlying conflict of what it means to be an American. “I mean, all the serious, dreadful things, like pain and death and love, in which you Americans do not believe.” There is a sense of bitterness whenever Giovanni or Hella talk about America, and what it represents. Happiness is something bestowed as a privilege in Europe that is a given in America. There’s less guilt placed on an American who is happy, who can simply make the decision to choose good from evil and right from wrong without accidentally fucking over their entire lives. It’s a very interesting aspect of this novel that I did not expect to be as big of a theme as it was.
I loved the early exploration of “finding one’s self” through leaving America. I often feel like this is something I personally subscribe to, and this book sets the reality straight that going abroad will not solve all of your problems or help you find yourself.
Giovanni comments on American optimism with such a derisive tone that you can’t help but feel like he’s mocking the American lifestyle. Despite the obvious feelings he has for David, it is his inability to separate David from his scathing view of America that ultimately tears them apart. David’s constant defense of his home nation ultimately acts as a form of self-defense that brings out the worst dissimilarities in their relationship and forces it to come crashing down. David tries to run from his American self much in the same way he tries to run from his homosexuality, and both are impossible to leave behind, try as he might.
Giovanni’s life in Italy brings out a sense of trauma and national identity that forces his critiques of American joy and optimism to make much more sense. You understand where both are coming from and ultimately, the vision of America and what we term “The American Dream” acts as a core facet of this book’s central issues with identity and self.
Most of the nonfiction pieces I’ve read from Baldwin also focus on America and American identity. I liked the fictional exploration of this theme and seeing how it fit in within the Parisian setting and the relationship between Giovanni and David. It’s wonderfully done and forces you to consider what it means to be American, white, male, and privileged, even when you feel like you are unworthy and shameful for other aspects of your identity.
There is so much that can be said about this marvelous book. It’s very short, with my copy only spanning about 180 pages. James Baldwin carries within his pen an immaculate power to write and feel and see things about people, about humanity, about the individual self and the community of nation without having to draw it out too long. I really appreciated the brevity of this novel (especially as I am reading One Hundred Years of Solitude and finding it quite treacherous in its long-winded explanations) and while it was short, it was far from simple.
I completely understand why this is so many people’s favorite books. The ending brought with it a sense of tragedy that only a truly well-written book could end with. This felt timeless and powerful, and I highly encourage everyone to pick this up at least once in their lives. I have so many things I want to say, but at the same time, the book speaks for itself.
Comments
Post a Comment