There is no doubt that Baldwin’s writing is achingly beautiful. The way he uses language to evoke powerful emotions is nothing short of incredible. What struck me was even though the book was first published in 1956, Baldwin’s writing reads in very contemporary way- this book could’ve been written a decade ago and would still make sense. He was also a considerably daring writer for his time - he talks unashamedly and unapologetically about the queer male experience, something that must’ve been extremely shocking and provocative for 1950s America.

Being a Brit living in France, I connected with David’s experience of being an American living in Paris, dealing with issues such as homesickness and societal pressures to return home. David himself though is frustratingly selfish, and I disagree with the blurb’s description that “his girlfriend’s return to Paris destroys everything”, when it is actually David’s deceit, lies and selfishness that are to blame for the events that lead up to the devastating main event. His selfish nature leads him to have toxic relationships with the other characters; on the one hand you empathise with this because he’s dealing with inner turmoil and self denial, but on the other, leads him to being a very unlikeable, annoying character (I think this was Baldwin’s Intention).

As the plot takes place in Paris, Baldwin often includes conversational snippets in French. Whilst this really helped reinforce the setting and characterisations of the Parisians, I noticed that a lot of the french grammar was wrong. The French is relatively accessible if you’re familiar with high school French, so I don’t know whether the grammar issues are the fault of Baldwin or the publisher. Nevertheless, it lead to a jarring reading experience when something wasn’t conjugated right or there were spelling mistakes. I still appreciated the french, though.

So yeah, I ended up giving this 3 stars. It’s worth reading just for Baldwin’s writing alone, but I had other issues with the book as mentioned above, as well as pacing and structural issues.

I won't start by talking much about the writing. It is James Baldwin. As always his prose is perfect. Somehow a single sentence can include desolation and hope, resignation and strength, and it does all that with economy and poetry. The perfection of the prose allowed me to focus fully on the story being told. I also won't start by telling you this is a good book. Of course its a good book. Instead I want to talk about the reading experience, because in addition to being a great novel, this is a historical document, and it gave me a good deal to reflect on.

I wondered throughout how different a read this would have been in 1956 or 1986, or 2006 for that matter. In earlier times the beauty, earthiness, and simplicity of David and Giovanni's love would have been a revelation and I am sure to many a much needed validation. That was certainly true in 1986 when the public perception of sexual relationships between men was limited to the transactional sex of the bathhouses that were the focus of AIDs news coverage and the bars as depicted in Cruising. I am no historian, but I see Giovanni's Room as the beginning of a subgenre of film and literature that depicts same gender relationships which include love, connection and tenderness and are somehow therefore doomed to crushing loss and pain. I think about Midnight Cowboy, Brokeback Mountain, even Philadelphia (in which love was depicted as tragic and also very non-carnal.) And I get it. The world made a stable joyful long-term relationship between men an awfully difficult, maybe impossible, goal. And also, it was not just straight people watching and reading these tales. I imagine boys realizing same-sex attraction most often did not even think to work for deeper relationships because it was not presented as a possibility. I am not intending to straight-splain or infer that long-term committed partnerships are the be-all-and-end-all. I mention all this because I have a point here that required some foundation. Art is in the viewers perception not the artist's intention. This is not timeless, and this is a very different book now than it was when written. I assume this story was revolutionary at its time in treating love between two men as something beautiful, if doomed. For me, here in 2022 though a good deal of what I see is not the liberation but the shame and self-loathing. There are constant biting asides talking about the loathsomeness of "fairies", how appalling it was to see a man behave in an "effeminate" way. There are also constant reminders that the "good" gay men also desired women. Giovanni and David both stress how much they enjoy(ed) sex with women. It is only the old queens, depicted as predators looking to seduce straight young boys with cash and prizes who only like boys.

Even the characters' physical surroundings and daily activities convey the message "homosexual=less than." Giovanni and David roll around in bed all day, accomplish nothing but drinking cognac and fucking in a decaying shell of a servant's room, barely within city limits, with peeling wallpaper and dirty sheets and pungent bodies. David and Hella, on the other hand, lie together in clean sheets, scrubbed sweet-smelling underclothing hanging from the bathroom rail. They pop out to take day trips around France or to stroll - always on the Right Bank bien sur. I understand that at the time pride was not something LGBTQ+ people could get to, what with the day to day burden of surviving and staying out of jail. That knowledge does not remove the sting of recognizing that what Giovanni and David had was considered a dream, that this was a comparatively positive look at life for gay men, that this limited and necessarily tragic existence was aspirational.

The world is now a very different place and when reading this now ione sees some warts. The book remains beautiful and revolutionary it a way, and now it is a reminder of just how recently so many of the people around us were denied the opportunity to even try to have a simple, mundane life of contentment and how many people suffered as a result (David's father and Hella were both caught in the crossfire, and suffered a great deal.) Also worth mentioning, the discussion of trans women and women in general is appalling. Hella lamenting her interest in the world and begging to just be controlled by a man made me shudder. Giovanni laughing about how women need to be beaten was even worse. Audre Lorde called out Baldwin on being hateful to women and she was so right. (For a snippet of that google James Baldwin and Audre Lorde and you will find a widely available conversation between then that was published in Ebony I think or maybe it was Jett? It is short and worth the read for sure. GR won't let me link.)

So at the end of this non-review where I think out my feelings in front of everyone who cares to watch, I heartily recommend that everyone read this book. It is a 4 rather than a 5 because the final 20ish pages were a bit ridiculously melodramatic IMO, for the misogyny when Baldwin knew better, and because there are a couple other books by Baldwin I thought were a whole lot better, and I felt the need to distinguish that -- had this book been written by a less accomplished writer than Baldwin perhaps I would have notched up to a 5. Vive la Baldwin.

Giovanni's Room is very well written and is a good story. I definitely liked the book, but I could not give it a higher rating because it is so depressing.

The story is just filled with so much contempt. It definitely reflects the hidden shame many LGBT individuals have experienced and still do experience, but man, it feels heavy.

Baldwin writes in such a way, that every other paragraph contains a quotable line- he has a way with words.

I would recommend the book.