Review by messymimms - Giovanni's Room

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messymimms 's review for:

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

3.25

challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Another sad and sadly important book! I understand why it’s a classic, as it does what classics do best, delve into a deeply specific situation that has some bearing on universal human themes and emotions. At its heart, Giovanni’s room is a story about shame.

It chronicles what happens when the object of your desire is so unthinkable (read: a man) that they become grotesque and despised by virtue of your own projected self-hatred. Not easy reading.

The narrator is admirably reflective; he dodges and intellectualises but really, he knows how he feels. Baldwin accurately describes those moments where you can see the truth inside yourself, *somewhere over there* but you daren’t look in case it catches the light and becomes more real.

He is also painfully observant, detail-obsessed and speculative. Always going off and describing the projected inner workings of someone else’s life. Often women - such strange creatures! Speaking from a 21st Century ADHD perspective, he sounds neurodivergent. But that’s just opinion!

Beyond being a story of shame, this novel also talks about codependency, with characters smearing boundaries all over the place and taking advantage of power (the power of shame? Maybe that’s putting it too simply). It’s a mess! But that’s the point.

The writing itself is intense. There are long sentences. There are big words. There were some new words for me, like “unregenerate” and - dear god - it drilled the word sardonic into my mind. A lot of people in this book act sardonically. Some of it is in French, but I rather enjoyed that.

Especially towards the beginning, the language is dynamic and very exciting; heat “bangs” against walls, light “spills” covering everything, telephone poles “come crying out” as you speed towards them. This shifts through the novel, and towards the end is where I felt it became dense and a little tepid. This seems to reflect the main character’s depth of despair, which kind of works, I guess.

We have a great view into the inner machinery of the narrator’s mind, his attempts to cover-up, his little lies, his big ones, his overthinking, his biases and his bigotry too. The rest of the view is Paris and its characters, with all of their flaws laid out. So. Many. Flaws.

Look, there are reasons I have not ventured to Paris in my adult life. I’m allergic to hedonism. At best I don’t get it, at worst it ~~disgusts~~ really bothers me. The wine, the intensity, all of those varied and supposedly wondrous plaisirs of the flesh - not my bag. Don’t come for me, I’ve got my own shit, I’m in therapy!!!

As such, a book like this was never going to be meant for me. I’ve never felt David nor Giovanni’s particular gut-wrenching anguish, their need to be close and the impossibility of that, but overall, Giovanni’s Room truly had its moments. Despite being heady, intellectual and anxiety-inducing, it felt authentic. I have no doubt Baldwin wrote from experience.

For anyone looking to really delve into the mind of a queer person in the 1950s, I would consider this essential reading. I suppose I’d just ask you to remember it doesn’t represent all queer people. Many of us can (thankfully) both love and like each other.

Content Warnings