Rating: 
Summary: Is this Desire?
Review: It is a shame that James Baldwin is so overlooked by the younger generations of readers. There is no parallel to the brilliance in his work and his writing style that is literary and thought provoking. "Giovanni's Room" packs a tremendous emotional punch with its narration of David, an American living in Paris during the 1950's. David's journey is the slow acceptance of his sexuality, as he carries on a relationship with the Italian bartender, Giovanni, while David's fiance, Hella, is abroad in Spain. This novel has withstood decades of censorship on gay literature and we benefit from it. Baldwin takes on sexuality with grace and patience as we watch the narrator battle his own inner demons. Very early on, David tells us that he knows he is at fault for the suffering of those around him and that Giovanni will be will be executed on the guillotine the next morning. David then takes us back into his history with Giovanni and their life in the small room he rents. As the story unfolds, we watch as David creeps into the subculture of Paris, dependent on the money of his wealthy friends who loiter in the gay underground. Yet, there is a sense of contentment from the narrator with his new surroundings, though he does not openly admit to it. He sees his sexuality and his involvement in this "forbidden lifestyle" as a temporary one and then that fragile stability is shattered when Hella finally returns. This book is a treasure that accurately documents one person's journey in self-discovery and questions the lines between love and desire. Thank you, James Baldwin, for what you've left behind for us.
Rating:
Summary: No Matter Where You Go - There You Are
Review: My now-deceased cousin Charles was a gay painter who gave this book to me when I was 16. Back then I followed him around like his shadow, loving his stories of travel and lovers. I grew to travel and thought of how no matter where I went, I took me. James Baldwin's Giovanni's room, seems to be a story of this realization, of not being able to escape yourself; despite being in the free-est position you'll probably ever be in again. Too bad San Francisco wasn't up and running for a man in his position, back then. Nowadays the pilgrimage to self identity is the same by plane, and having lived in both Paris and Frisco, Paris (for me) is definitely the place to face oneself. James Baldwin's David seems to be fighting a demon that surfaced long before his sexuality came into question. Between the lines I'm seeing a portrayal of Mr. Baldwin's 1950's America as the P-envying society of self-hate that he has escaped. He arrives in America's parallel universe, Paris; a place where he is accepted without having to reinvent himself. I lived in Paris for 4 years. I went there with my pre-conceived notions, and was introduced to theirs. Being an American woman in Europe, men see you as the unfulfilled dame who has not been allowed to blossom. They see you as the accepting and unsatisfied victim of a cocky, selfish, binging male culture. They feel obliged to help you recover. to show that quality not quantity is the answer. finesse not excess. Baldwin's Giovanni's room is a book that makes me think, that the plague of identity issues, sexual, societal, etc., is a monster empowered by self-doubt, a parasite in which strength of character can only defeat. You are your own worst enemy.
Rating:
Summary: my favorite book of all time
Review: i love givannis room so much, james baldwin writes a story that is short and compact, but oh so good. Giovannias room is an extrememly easy read, i had to read it again after i read it the first time. I saw a bit of myself in the characters, which made it especially interesting to me. Im sure you will find a bit of yourself in the characters as well. There are people who love and those who are loved and its hard not to be able to relate to this story. it is my fav book of all time, and it started me on all of james baldwins great books.
Rating: 
Summary: Another view
Review: I had to read this book for class, otherwise I would have thrown it in the trash. People pay money for this? Sure, Baldwin can write, but I feel like I need a shower after Giovanni's Room. It's not the sex; there is hardly any in the book. It's the depravity. People hate themselves, hate others, try to drink it away and then go home to a nasty room where no one cleans. Lovely. I feel like I did after watching Pulp Fiction or the Deer Hunter. I kept waiting for some redeeming character to step forward to pull this creepy book out of the muck. If you feel like hating yourself, or want a taste of suicidal tendencies, read this book. Yeah, he's good writer, but please.
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Summary: Hella
Review: I loved this book! It was hard for me to understand at first but once I read it a second time :-) I understood it better and I am in the middle of reading it a 3rd time already and I got to thinking about his girl Hella. I find that near the end of the novel when she returns to David that some of the things she said is a way I possibly feel about my husband. It was a little scary at first almost as if someone had read my mind and wrote down my thoughts. But I think that Hella knew from the moment she and David and Giovanni were in the same space that David and Giovanni had been together. I think she should have left them to be because I thought that David and Giovanni should have been together. They shared many things together but Hella just always cut into it. I think it was Hella's fault that Giovanni was executed because she was playing games with David. But then again David should have seen her litlle games and left and been done with her a long time ago. I know I would have. She is the cause of David's problems I think. But what do I know, I'm only reading for the 3rd time so there is probably so much more I haven't been able to understand yet....
Rating:
Summary: amazing
Review: This short novel from James Baldwin is incredibly profound, and paints a compelling psychological portrait of a young man positioned at an intersection of weakness, coldness and fear. The protagonist, a wanna-be ex-pat in gay (in both senses) Paris of the 50s carries on a doomed affair with a young waiter named Giovanni, while his fiance, with whom he has a differntly dysfunctional relationship is traveling around Europe. This novel is about denial, escapism, normativity, but most importantly it is about alienation and inability to love, portrayed through a raw emotional modernist narrative, before alienation was only tackled in fiction through ironic pomo disaffect.
Rating: 
Summary: And the point was....?
Review: James Baldwin is an overrated writer in my opinion. I've read three of his "best" works and am not just basing this sentiment on one novel. Giovanni's room begins excellently; it vividly captures the mood of Paris and its more colorful characters. It presents the inner conflicts of Jacques and the main character well. But by the middle, it goes downhill with stereotyping (Giovanni is the proverbial loudmouth chauvanist Italian who's prone to fits of rage and crying; Hella is the spoiled, scattered-brain blond with no backbone; and Jacques is the sad, empty queen). In the end the story becomes a melo/crime drama. And what was the point? The main character was always a cold, detached soul that never came to any realization at the end, wasn't changed, and made no decisions about his life and treatment of people. Even THAT wasn't made the point.
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Summary: Mr. Baldwin goes to France
Review: It's possible that James Baldwin's main strength as a writer is his ability to be subtly insightful. He gets his ideas across without overpowering the reader with them. Much of the imagery that he uses in this novel is very poignant when considering the plight of both the main characer and Giovanni. That is, when considering the main character's inability to accept certain truths about himself, and the ramifications that has for others (I suppose, himself included).
While this book only occasionally sustains the lyrical flow that made Go Tell it on the Mountain so very distinctive, it's more daring in it's approach and subject matter. Very few writers would be able to handle the ebb and flow of personal denial and hard realization as gracefully and naturally as James Baldwin does. So, in a sense, what it gives up in style, it more than makes up for in content; which isn't to say the style of writing is bad (I wouldn't have given it five stars if it was). Compared to most other writers, Mr. Baldwin has a fluid, insightful pen. I'm simply basing my stylistic comparison on the near songlike quality of prose in Go Tell it on the Mountain (which I also highly recomend). Also, while toned down quite a bit, there are quite a few religious referances throughout this novel. So, If you have read, or studied the Bible, that layer will be readily apparent. It might also be a good idea to have an English to French dictionary with you (or at the very least a handy French student whom you can reference). This novel has an abundance of untranslated French snippets.
I would recomend this novel for anybody who is interested in the struggle to resolve one's sexual identity. I would also recomend this to anyone who is interested in sexual politics. Although I wouldn't necesarilly lump it together with the books written by the expatriates (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Stein etc), anyone who likes those books may enjoy the European flavor of this one (with all of it's little snippets of french).
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: Baldwin's book is nothing short of amazing. His characters are all incredibly interesting, and not one of them without emotion. Some passages are so true to life, it's worth reading the book for just those few words. Not to say the book isn't amazing as a whole. You'll feel each characters anguish and struggle, it's almost too difficult to take sides.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing like a classic!
Review: First, ignore the review on the Amazon page from "The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature". What a horrible review! While it is not really negative about the book, it makes the book sound so sterile and boring! If you want to see what really great writing is like, try out Giovanni's Room. This was my introduction to James Baldwin and now I'm a huge fan. While I read the book because it was a groundbreaking early gay novel, I love it because it is an intriguing story and beautiful book. Baldwin's characters are so real you really can share their emotions, feel their pain, and experience their turmoil. You can certainly find more progressive gay stories out there, but for the 1950's, this was daring and new.
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