Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin: Review

 

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin is a wonderful and emotional piece of modern fiction. The main character David is a complex and intriguing character, with which the reader is forced to both root for and criticise.

I personally found Giovanni’s Room to be a beautiful addition to the well written genre that is homosexual love in the 1950s. I found that there was an abundance of deeply flawed characters that require the reader to love and hate in equal parts. The character of Jacques in particular prances about the pages in a manner very reminiscent of Wilde's Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Jacques’ vapid, hyper-sexual personality, and ingratiating attitude towards young men, encourages the reader to dislike him as much as the protagonist, David, does. Throughout the book, the reader is presented with a varied group of men and a couple of interesting female characters, whose outlook’s on life and appreciation for the ‘moment’ come across as very authentic but ultimately unremarkable in the common-place idea of young people being niche and surreptitious.

I found that unfortunately, the overall plot line of the novel was relatively easy to ascertain from the very beginning. Baldwin followed a common theme often seen in books that are centred about homoerotic love and this was prevalent throughout the story. It created a series of events that were fairly easy to guess the next leg of, and didn’t really leave a whole deal to the imagination. In saying, I did particularly enjoy the centre of the book which features a chapter that focuses on the almost dreamlike and simple but loving relationship that David and Giovanni have in Paris. The flow of the narrative is fluid and positive. Further, I thoroughly enjoyed the fractured narration of the story. The jumping between the present reflections of David being interwoven with his brief relationship with Giovanni in the near past is a delightful feature in the flow of the book. It keeps the reader enticed in the scenes of the book and also helps the reader be put into the mindset of David as he reminiscences about Giovanni. In this way, the reader is connected with David and this adds to the evocative narrative style.

Throughout the book there is a deep negative energy that is portrayed through David’s experiences and emotions. David’s internalised hate for being interested sexually in men is prevalent and at times heart-wrenching for the reader. The almost whimsical way in which David escapes into his self-made lie of heteronormativity is well written by Baldwin but is not a new format of writing. It has been seen in other woks such as Forester’s Maurice and Waughs Brideshead revisted.

The ending of the book was fairly unremarkable. The likelihood of Giovanni coming to a bad end was quite easy to surmise, early on. Despite this, the way in which Baldwin presents this to the reader is done in a very Orwellian style, which I thought was a beautiful addition to the narrative. The execution of Giovanni makes one draw parallels between the end of Orwell’s 1984, in the way that it is highly suggested but not explicitly stated, that Giovanni dies.

In summary, Giovanni’s Room is a book that I would recommend one to read, as it addresses the important reality of sexual identity and life in general. Baldwin’s narrative style engrosses the reader in its fractured but also meoldous prose.