Name: Giovanni’s Room
Rating: 4.367924528301887 (53 reviews)

James Baldwin

David, a young American in 1950s Paris, is waiting for his fiancée to return from vacation in Spain. But when he meets Giovanni, a handsome Italian barman, the two men are drawn into an intense affair. After three months David's fiancée returns and, denying who he is, he rejects Giovanni for a
'safe' future as a married man. It is a decision that will bring tragedy.

Giovanni’s Room

so much more painful when you realize how much of the misery comes from himself… he keeps trying to make desire into something he can reason his way out of, like if he refuses to name it then it can’t really exist. and baldwin never makes that self-denial feel clean or romantic either ugh it’s ugly, selfish, and painfully human

fæ 

it’s so much more painful when you realize how much of the misery comes from himself… he keeps trying to make desire into something he can reason his way out of, like if he refuses to name it then it can’t really exist. and baldwin never makes that self-denial feel clean or romantic either ugh it’s ugly, selfish, and painfully human

Greg Talbot

“You say that my way of thinking cannot be tolerated? What of it? The man who alters his way of thinking to suit others is a fool. My way of thinking is the result of my reflections. It is part of my inner being ,the way I am made. I do not contradict them, and would not even if I wished to. For my system, which you disapprove of is also my greatest comfort in life, the source of all my happiness -it means more to me than my life itself.” ― Marquis de Sade   “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you”. – Maya Angelou. Not knowing a word of langauge, James Baldwin came to France with $40 in his hand. In interviews, he describes the move as reflexive, a move to a country where he could be more than "nothing" (<a target="_blank" href="https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2994/the-art-of-fiction-no-78-james-baldwin" rel="nofollow noopener">https://www.theparisreview.org/interv...</a>). Despair and suicide had taken the life of his best friend). Surviving off grants and the success of his first novel "Go Tell it to the Mountain", Baldwin's second novel explores a man like himself leaving America to be liberated, to write and to feel. A three year relationship with Lucien Happersberger, a man he describes as the love of his life, Baldwin writes of having discovered some humanity that he could never find in America. Quoting his poetic hero Walt Whitman's monumental "Song of Myself", Baldwin says of writing in the first hand perspective "I am the man, I suffer'd, I was there." The opening of Giovanni's Room has our narrator reflecting on the two loves he is losing. An American flame who adventures to Spain when asked for her hand in marriage and a male lover who takes him to the bars and nightlife of the underground clubs of Paris. "There is something fantastic in the spectacle I now present to myself of having run so far, so hard, across the ocean even, only to find myself brought up short once more before the bulldog in my own backyard" (p.5). Somber and pensive, we walk through this narrator's struggles for intimacy, connection, abandonment of sexual mores and the attempt to patch his fantastic voyage to a sustainable new beginning. In 2020, Baldwin's work electrifies. Although "Giovanni's Room" is likely to be overlooked when his interviews and non-fiction ("The Fire Next Time (1963)) feel prescient to a generation ready to hear stirring words, it remains a beautiful and stunning book that hits powerfully. And it remains true to Baldwin's courageous prose; a love story of an outsider peeling off the identity he was given to embrace the man he was meant to be.

Steph

What a beautiful, beautiful book. Will be thinking about this for a long time. 

Tada

“Much has been written of love turning to hatred, of the heart growing cold with the death of love.” The very definition of “Be gay, do crime.” Aside from that, this is a book containing one of the most dangerous yearning there is, of how love and infatuation intertwine with each other, blurring the lines of your own sanity. Giovanni is all of us, if not more, eating away our loneliness for a pair of embracing arms. It will be rather hard for me to shake this off of my mind.

Nadine MacDonald

It was good, kind of what I had hoped A Little Life would have been like, but even this is a little heavy for my taste

wow just wow! love the way baldwin writes it’s absolutely incredible. i feel that it was tough to read so this is why i didn’t give it 5 stars but still this is a masterpiece 

bhnso

armoni mayes

FINALLY a five star read after like two months. anyways, james really snapped with this one because this book was much better than even five stars. i loved all of the characters in this novel, even david who at times was driving me crazy. but i can empathize with his struggles of trying to figure out his sexuality while balancing two lovers. giovannis room brought out the best and worst in him-and it seemed that he was scared to be trapped in the two worlds. i think if they could’ve moved out of giovanni’s room, they could’ve made it work. but giovanni obviously had attachment issues and i think it made it hard for david to see past those problems. some of my favorite quotes: 

“I understood why Giovanni wanted me and had brought me to his last retreat. I was to destroy this room and give Giovanni a new and better life. This life could only be my own, which, in order to transform Giovanni‘s, must first become part of Giovanni‘s room.”

“It was a gesture of gray despair and I knew that she was giving herself, not to me, but to a lover who would never come.”

this is one of the best books i've ever read

Amira 

I am going to jump off of a cliff why would you do this to me James Baldwin? I feel like there’s a empty hole in my chest that’s just been carved out by James Baldwin… idk if thing will get better. Idk if I want them to get better. Im so sad… #smash

re-read of my fav book ever. no words in this language would ever be enough to express the genius and craft of the novel. even better than 3 yrs ago—james baldwin achieves everything you could ever want from a novel of this kind 

Ville

kayla 

Isabella 

I am heartbroken. This is a beautifully written book about the struggles with sexuality and society. It depicts shame, guilt, internalized homophobia and its effects. Baldwin was able to set the scenes perfectly to the point where it felt like I was in the story.

غرفة جيوفاني

MaiAbdelhamed

أعتقد أن يمكن تلخيص فكرة الرواية بالعبارة التي ذكرت في بداية الأحداث "شخصا ما ، والدك أو ربما أبي ،كان عليهما أخبارنا أن قلة من الناس فقط يموتون من الحب ، لكن الكثرة تهلك ، وتفنى -في الاماكن الخاطئة-كل ساعة بسبب فقدان الحب " هذه رواية كتبت بإحكام تحكي عن ضياع الإنسان و عدم مقدرته على تحديد هويته و حركته باستمرار في دوائر مفرغة مكررة دون جدوى .
ملحوظة :أنا عندي نزعة دينية محددة في موضوع المثلية الجنسية ، بس الكاتب في الرواية دي طرح الموضوع بصورة عظيمة .

Giovanni’s Room

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