”Giovanni's Room" by James Baldwin - a review

 “Giovanni‘s Room“ by James Baldwin:

‘‘I stand at the window of this great house in the south of France as night falls, the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life”. 

So begins the tragedy in Giovanni’s Room, published in 1956. In a mastery of language in writing and an often confessional voice it recounts the tormented love affair between the American narrator, David, and Giovanni, an Italian bartender in Paris.

From the very beginning we learn that David has abandoned Giovanni, we know that David’s ex-fiancée Hella has left him and returned to the United States, we know that Giovanni has been sentenced to die under the guillotine and David is waiting for the morning to arrive when he knows Giovanni will meet his fate. 

I have read this book many many years ago, when I had been young and it might be due to my circumstances then that I read it differently from how I read it now. 

Back then the book was all about the right to love, regardless whom, in equality. And it was about all the shame and torture that accompanies following this conviction. Humans, in their love, are fluid beings and to be liberated means to love with the same level of freedom. This should be clear by now, in 1956 this truth had not been quite so evident. 

Now, though I think the book is not so much about a queer relationship, it is much more about what happens if one is so afraid of love that one finally cannot love anybody. I’ve read it now less as an affirmation of queerness than an exploration of how much suffering it causes to deny who and what you are and the way we damage everything, ourselves, our friends, our relationships, when we try to fit norms that don’t define us. The central subject of the book is still shame and the intricacies of sexuality and morality. And it is about the loss of dignity and the fear to be unable to meet the expectations of society.

There is an almost Jamesian quality in the prose, sparse and concise at one time and at other times beautifully poetic and philosophical, creating microclimates of emotions.

And as in The Ambassadors by Henry James, a young American in search of himself and his role and purpose in life moves to Europe, to Paris. Here he awaits the return of his departed girlfriend who moved to Spain in order to "find herself".

Unexpectedly he finds himself deeply immersed in a love affair with an attractive Italian barman and moves to live with him into his room. The room itself, a place of respite, situated on the outskirts of Paris, dark, confined and messy, becomes the metaphor for the clandestine and shame-ridden nature of their affair. It is both protective isolation and prison. 

As every traveler knows, the profoundest experience of understanding what home means is living abroad for the first time. One discovers, after leaving it behind, what home meant and what one has lost. As in The Ambassadors here, too Americans are placed under close scrutiny and in comparison to different cultures, especially the famous/ infamous American trait of happiness, this peculiar innocence they seem to possess, this belief that one can choose, without great sacrifice, cost or consequences, to be good and move through the world without causing harm. 

One of the book’s most famous lines about Americans come from Hella, the fiancée of David: “Americans should never come to Europe,” she says. “It means they never can be happy again. What’s the good of an American who isn’t happy? Happiness was all we had.” 

Giovanni to David proves to be the only person with whom he has ever felt a true, erotic and spiritual love. And yet, when his fiancée returns, David abandons Giovanni, even as he knows he wants to be with a man. He perceives this kind of love as a threat to his masculinity and just to keep himself grounded in normality he struggles through heterosexual relationships with women, leaving a trail of unhappiness for everyone. Feeling betrayed by his lack of honesty and the revelation that David can never love her with genuine feelings Hella finally leaves him. Giovanni, left behind devastated, commits a crime and is sentenced to death.

David is a character who will always protect himself even for the cost of love and happiness. He will attempt to risk a little but never too much. David is weak and cruel and filled with shame and remorse. Giovanni wants to live life to its fullest, no matter the cost to himself or anyone else. 

This book laments a lost and wasted love. To have read this book again after so many years has given me great joy. It truly is a remarkable and beautiful work of literature which seems to have gained with time and aged quite well.

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