This Message in ‘Giovanni’s Room’ Can Keep Us From Self-Destructing
The teachings of a Baldwin classic to keep in mind this Pride Month
TW: Mentions of homophobia
Spoiler warning: please be aware this review contains spoilers
Giovanni’s Room has always been described to me as a “gay book,” and now that I’ve read it myself, I have to disagree. I wouldn’t even say it’s a book about gay people.
More than anything, I saw this as a book about love and being scared to love, which has been and still is an issue that many queer folk face largely due to society’s outlook on homosexuality as some sort of crime or atrocity. However, this story carries a message that I think is important for everyone to receive regardless of sexual orientation.
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin is set in 1950s Paris and follows David, an American and the narrator, who enters a romantic relationship with Giovanni, an Italian bartender at a local gay bar, while his fiancée, Hella, is in Spain.
David grapples not only with the way society and his loved ones will view his affair and sexuality but also with the way he will view himself. As for Giovanni, he battles with demons from his past, insecurities, and his struggles to make a decent living in Paris that manifest themselves in many awful ways.
After reading this novel, I initially was so angry with David because I felt he was a coward who used Giovanni and threw him away just as quickly. But when I thought about all of the pressures put upon him by society, his father, and even his fiancée to be a “real man”, I understood how trapped he must have felt and why.
“when one begins to search for the crucial, the definitive moment, the moment which changed all others one finds oneself pressing, in great pain, through a maze of false signals and abruptly locking doors.”
David was only confident enough to show affection toward Giovanni either in the gay bar he worked at or in Giovanni’s tiny room where they were sheltered from the judgment of others and even then David still seemed to be holding back.
David would often talk about how much he feared his father or Hella finding out about his affair with Giovanni and what they would think, but more than anything I think he was also afraid of what he would think of himself if he continued to entertain the idea that he had fallen in love with another man hook, line, and sinker.
Everything he had been groomed to believe about what a man is did not align with the way he felt, and that’s when the self-hatred began setting in, which he took out on Giovanni. David even calls him a homophobic slur and begins to hate Giovanni as he gets more flamboyant because he is personifying everything David has been taught to frown upon and everything David hates about himself.
“The body suddenly seemed the black opening of a cavern in which I would be tortured till madness came, in which I would lose my manhood”
My heart broke for Giovanni so many times throughout this book. Between the story of his past life in Italy, his relationship with David, issues with his job at the bar, and the events that led to his death I just felt like this man could never catch a break.
At the beginning of the book, Giovanni had such a boisterous personality so I wasn’t expecting to be so sad for him by the end of it, but that’s also what made Giovanni my favorite character — he has so many layers. Giovanni gave so much of himself to others though he was never any better for it, which is something I think many can relate to (myself included).
He was also my favorite character because of how outspoken and unapologetic he was in his opinions about everything, even when it came to David constantly lying to himself about the viability of his relationship with Hella.
“You want to leave Giovanni because he makes you stink. You want to despise Giovanni because he is not afraid of the stink of love. You want to kill him in the name of all your lying little moralities.”
Baldwin gives many examples in this novel of how harmful we can be to ourselves when we try to run from our emotions and how they always manage to resurface no matter how hard we try to repress them. David tries to escape into heterosexuality and even moves back to America to get away from his life in Europe, but he still falls into a deep depression and both of his relationships disintegrate.
Giovanni tries to run from the horrors of his past life in Italy by moving to France, but he is only faced with more horrors and struggles that ultimately lead to his demise. Even the room the book’s title refers to is meant to be an escape for both Giovanni and David to love as they wish away from any public judgment or shame, but overtime both characters become more aware of how tiny the room is and no matter how much Giovanni tries to expand or redecorate it, it will never be enough to sustain a life together.
The message I received from Baldwin through this story is to live and love as freely as possible before that option is no longer available. I think one of the worst things human beings can do to themselves is live in regret.
It’s like continuously trying to open a locked door — you want to move forward, but can’t until YOU give yourself that access instead of being afraid of what is behind it. This book is one of the saddest ones I’ve ever read, but I also think it is a very necessary story, especially as we celebrate Pride Month.
As cheesy as it sounds, self-love is the most important love and that message is prevalent throughout this novel and one that we should keep in mind as we celebrate pride this month and every other month.
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