Review: Giovanni's Room

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Giovanni's Room
by
James Baldwin
★★★★★ 5 out of 5 stars

I am reading this for the Black-Oween-Athom (readathon) for October 2020, for the category of “A book by a black trans, queer, or non-binary author.”

As I start reading this, I thought, this story is a coming of age, but as I read more, I realize this would be more of coming to grips with identity and reality. Amazing and excellent writing! Powerful, poetic, lyrical and expressive. David, the protagonist, tells his story as a bi-sexual man from his teenage years to his life in Paris. In Paris, he thinks would give him the opportunity of freedom, yet his secret he thought he left behind follows him. Unassured, confused and afraid; filled with fear, lies and self-hate; leaving him selfish and embarrassed. Struggling and standing at the crossroads of identity. His journey begins in Giovanni’s Room.

Giovanni:
The barman that David meet right at the time he was running out of money, takes him home from the bar, and there to his room. David and Giovanni develop a relationship of passion and love; denial and regret. Besides David, there is a lot to be said about Giovanni experiences; closed in, alone, emotional, hurt, pain and abandonment.

Hella:
There is not much to say about Hella, she was just an excuse. Giovanni is who he wanted, Hella he who felt he needed. Making that choice between the two was his struggle, yet he couldn’t come to grips to accepting one over the other. I don’t think it really mattered if she left him and went to Spain. Although, things were different when she came back to Paris, but the change in David was always there, her leaving just gave David the time to revolve in his truth, yet later he abandoned.

Questions that I asked:
 Could Giovanni be saved? Was it David’s responsibility to look out for Giovanni?
 If Guillaume and Jacques were not in the picture, would things have been different?
 Who was the brother’s keeper?
 Giovanni lived in his own prison, so prison was no different than his life. Was the darkness in
Giovanni’s room what David ran away from or was it David’s darkness that David ran away
from?

David had concluded that Giovanni’s room was Paris and “getting out of Giovanni’s room means getting out of Paris,” so did David believe running away from Paris with Hella would take away what he felt for Giovanni? I think David sums it all up in this paragraph about himself and how he felt, “A cavern opened in my mind, black, full of rumor, suggestion, of half-heard, half-forgotten, half-understood stories, full of dirty words. I thought I saw my future in this cavern. I was afraid. I could have cried, cried for shame and terror, cried for not understanding how this could have happened to me, how this could have happened in me.” Evidence, that David was running from himself. Just like Giovanni said to David, “You will never give it to anybody, you will never let anybody touch it—man or woman. You want to be clean. You think you came here covered with soap and you think you will go out covered with soap—and you do not want to stink, not even for five minutes, in the meantime.” David’s relationship with anyone, was centered around his own perception.

David did a full circle, right back from where he began. “The morning weighs on my shoulders with the dreadful weight of hope and I take the blue envelope which Jacques has sent me and tear it slowly into many pieces, watching them dance in the wind, watching the wind carry them away. Yet, as I turn and begin walking toward the waiting people, the wind blows some of them back on me.” David could not run away from who he was or his past. Maybe it was a lesson learned.

In conclusion, Baldwin wrote this one from the soul. His ability to articulate the struggle and the deep interpretation of a gay man’s life and experiences. This story touch my heart and I cried and cried. I was overwhelmed and not ready for this story. However, it gave me a great opportunity to read and see from a different prospective. Right, wrong or indifferent. It was life, someone’s life.
I gave this book a 5 out of 5 ★★★ ★★. Excellent! I highly recommend and if I can control my crying, I will re-read. This book was an original, unforgettable and flawless.



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