*spoilers ahead*


For a political science course I took in college, I watched a documentary, I Am Not Your Negro, based on James Baldwin’s unfinished last novel. I had never read his works before, much less heard him speak on political issues. I thus became entranced by his incredible ability to articulate what was painful, what was controversial, and still, have so much hope for the human race and society. Occasionally, I return to his interview on the Dick Cavett show, and find myself floored by the impact of his words.

Giovanni’s Room is the first novel I’ve read from Baldwin, and it certainly will not be my last. He has such a unique ability of translating emotions into tangible places, such that simple movements, such as walking or driving from one destination to another, add integral context to his characters’ development. Baldwin’s writing traps you within these places; each chapter felt like a slow exhale from holding a deep and painful breath.

The premise of the novel is simple: David, an American expatriate living in Paris, meets a bartender named Giovanni and falls for him. However, due to his internalized homophobia and pressures to conform to masculine norms, he disallows himself from pursuing a permanent relationship with him. Eventually, his rejection of Giovanni spurs events that lead to Giovanni’s execution.


“Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it. Either, or: it takes strength to remember, it takes another kind of strength to forget it, it takes a hero to do both.”


To me, Giovanni’s room symbolizes David’s Eden. It is the point at which reality and his desires converge. In it, he is closest to the truest version of himself, a version that he feels he cannot share to the world. For David, true happiness cannot exist without shame. This is why Giovanni claims that he lies all the time, even in the room—the person David lies to the most is himself. This fact is exemplified when Hella returns back to Paris with intentions of getting back together with David (which, in the context of biblical allusions, parallels Eve’s entering Eden). Her presence makes him understand the capacity of repercussions his affair with Giovanni can have, which he feels suffocated by. He then deludes himself into thinking he can forget Giovanni and run away with her toward a goal of marriage. This is a constant occurrence in the novel: David constantly trying to escape his sexuality.


“I was the only person on God’s cold, green earth who cared about him, who knew his speech and silence, knew his arms, and did not carry a knife.”


Giovanni’s Room is not really a love story; rather, it’s a story about the absence of love. Even though David cares for Giovanni, he thinks about himself first; his love is not unconditional. This makes his passivity at times pitiful and, at others, annoying. As a reader, you find yourself hoping that he will flourish into an honest man. But given the opening of the book—David waiting for Giovanni’s execution—you know this will not happen. The story is tragic to begin with, which makes the ending even sadder.

Giovanni was my favorite character, perhaps because we got to understand him in a variety of different states: the attractive boy that David felt enamored with, the tortured husband who lost a child, the angry worker who accidentally committed murder. He had all the volatility of a tragic character. Even from the start, you somehow get a sense for the type of person he is before he is really introduced. At times, Giovanni feels more spirit than human.


“You don’t have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.”


One of the most interesting themes this novel explores is home: Is it a place, a person, or both? David seems to discover a physical home in all the places he goes: Brooklyn, Paris, Giovanni’s room. He stays when public perception of his sexuality is how he intends it to be, and he leaves when this image is threatened by his affairs with men. In the end, David returns to Paris even though he is desperate to escape it: he is still stuck; he has trapped himself by not allowing himself to truly love. In this sense, the loss of Giovanni lights a guilt inside of him that ruins the potential of him ever finding a home. He must settle for a fate that brings him the least sorrow.

Giovanni’s Room is sad. It is the color gray and the feeling of loneliness. Yet it is so beautifully written. Baldwin has stated once, as advice for writers, that, “You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone.” All of his sentences in this novel feel this way to me.