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A review by artemisg
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
No matter how it seems now, I must confess: I loved him. I do not think that I will ever love anyone like that again.
About ten pages into this book, I knew it would absolutely ruin me, and ruin me it did.
I stared out into the street. I was beginning to think of Giovanni dying—where Giovanni had been there would be nothing, nothing forever.
This is a truly devastating story about the struggle of queer men navigating their identities and hopes and dreams. It’s also a story about privileged young people being idiots with their hearts and the hearts of those they care about, a story about love and hatred - and the thin line between the two. It’s heartbreaking and gut-punching.
With this fearful intimation there opened in me a hatred for Giovanni which was as powerful as my love and which was nourished by the same roots.
Baldwin understands like no one else. He somehow managed to capture every experience known to man in this book.
“For a woman,” she said, “I think a man is always a stranger.”
I don’t have it in me for a coherent review, so instead, here are some lines that knocked the air out of my lungs:
“Nobody can stay in the garden of Eden,” Jacques said. And then: “I wonder why.”
“Well,” I said, “Paris is old, is many centuries. You feel, in Paris, all the time gone by. That isn’t what you feel in New York—” He was smiling. I stopped.
“What do you feel in New York?” he asked.
“Perhaps you feel,” I told him, “all the time to come.”
We had, in effect, been playing a deadly game and he was the winner. He was the winner in spite of the fact that I had cheated to win.
“Then I would have no job and I have only just found out that I want to live.”
“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.” And then: “Here comes your baby. Sois sage. Sois chic. ”
He made me think of home—perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.
My executioners are here with me, walking up and down with me, washing things and packing and drinking from my bottle. They are everywhere I turn. Walls, windows, mirrors, water, the night outside—they are everywhere.
About ten pages into this book, I knew it would absolutely ruin me, and ruin me it did.
I stared out into the street. I was beginning to think of Giovanni dying—where Giovanni had been there would be nothing, nothing forever.
This is a truly devastating story about the struggle of queer men navigating their identities and hopes and dreams. It’s also a story about privileged young people being idiots with their hearts and the hearts of those they care about, a story about love and hatred - and the thin line between the two. It’s heartbreaking and gut-punching.
With this fearful intimation there opened in me a hatred for Giovanni which was as powerful as my love and which was nourished by the same roots.
Baldwin understands like no one else. He somehow managed to capture every experience known to man in this book.
“For a woman,” she said, “I think a man is always a stranger.”
I don’t have it in me for a coherent review, so instead, here are some lines that knocked the air out of my lungs:
“Nobody can stay in the garden of Eden,” Jacques said. And then: “I wonder why.”
“Well,” I said, “Paris is old, is many centuries. You feel, in Paris, all the time gone by. That isn’t what you feel in New York—” He was smiling. I stopped.
“What do you feel in New York?” he asked.
“Perhaps you feel,” I told him, “all the time to come.”
We had, in effect, been playing a deadly game and he was the winner. He was the winner in spite of the fact that I had cheated to win.
“Then I would have no job and I have only just found out that I want to live.”
“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.” And then: “Here comes your baby. Sois sage. Sois chic. ”
He made me think of home—perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.
My executioners are here with me, walking up and down with me, washing things and packing and drinking from my bottle. They are everywhere I turn. Walls, windows, mirrors, water, the night outside—they are everywhere.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia
Minor: Sexism and Sexual content