Giovanni's Room (Vintage International) Paperback – 12 Sept. 2013

Maybe the best of Baldwin's fiction, this great and very sad book. Completely, amazingly cool/detached about being gay/bisexual in the 1950s, leaving him to paint instead a portrait of a rather cruel young man, always keeping so apart from those he loves, seeing everything but not committing...the formality of his prose is breathtaking, and so different from the overheated Beat writers who'll follow him soon.

This was a book that brought back memories of the sixties and seventies. Baldwin had written a 'black' novel - 'Go Tell it on the Mountain' - and now wrote a gay novel, which as far as I could tell didn't combine the two. The hero never mentions colour, and gives a very believable account of a man who is living on the cusp between gay and straight life. We feel that he is really far more at home in the gay milieu, but occasionally escapes by going through the motions of a straight life. He comes across as rather selfish, but very human. There are wonderful moments when motives are stripped bare, as when Giovanni - the lover of the narrator - is crudely cast aside by the rich older man who he has become dependent upon. A very good read, transcending its era, yet authentically conjuring it up.

This novel was published in 1956. Set in Paris, a tragic story a doomed love affair been two gay men...an American and an Italian, both white. For a black writer to write about white homosexuals was astonishingly brave at that time. It is at times a difficult read but so worth it. I did not know that France only abolished the death penalty(the guillotine) in 1981 but that homosexuality had been legal between consenting adults since 1781.

Call Me By Your Name meets Tender is the Night in Giovanni’s Room, which follows David, an American living in Paris, and his relationship with the bartender Giovanni. From the comparative texts, I have chosen you will be able to tell that I adored this novel from the first line until the last. It also reminded me a lot of Brandon Taylor’s Real Life which I did not enjoy at the time, but after reading this and seeing similarities between the two I would like to give it a second chance. Baldwin deftly handles themes of gender, of what it means to be a man, and how it intersects with sexuality. The theme of alienation and isolation permeated every fascet of the novel, from the physical of Giovanni's room to the feeling of being, as F. Scott Fitzgerald puts it 'both within and without'. Even serving in the role of the narrator, David is both a part of what happens and just an observer, which is fascinating to see. At under 200 pages, the book is masterful in its ability to deliver a complete story, alongside these complex themes. It's the sort of book that is so brilliant it is difficult to review, other than to repeat how much I adore this book and urge you to read it.

I just started reading and it’s okay so far but I don’t really like the structure because the book is small, the words are small and really close together so I keep re-reading lines and confusing myself. It might just be a me problem and my eyesight but idk.. anyway here’s a comparison of the book with my iPhone 12 Pro Max phone case

James Baldwin's short novel "Giovanni's Room". It's about a young man struggling with his sexuality. Published in the 50s, and set in France.Although I am straight, and have never been remotely interested in men...I have a sympathy for anyone going through any kind of emotional turmoil.David, the narrator, has a sentience which is impossible to me, and every moment would be painful if I was that aware of my feelings...but it's Baldwin's psychological clarity which is the punch of the book. Its USP.David finds himself, loses himself, and breaks the continuity with his old life and American destiny in a grubby little room belonging to the charismatic Giovanni. In France, homosexuality was permissible, unlike in the UK, but people's dalliances and relationships were mostly clandestine and hidden away from the respectable veneer of society. Young men, knowing their life could never be accepted in the mainstream, find themselves at the mercy of poorly paid jobs, with no future. And many rely on the patronage of wealthy men, who prey on them in the shadows of Paris.That Baldwin was a black man, living in Paris, is notable. But despite the obvious struggles Baldwin must have faced in America and France with his ethnicity, there isn't a trace of that in the book. But there is an intensity to sexual politics. And the character of David's girlfriend, Hella, is drawn with sympathetic attention to her own struggles, both as a woman...and as someone who realises the person she loves, she didn't really know at all.