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Summary: A visit to the wine cellar for a vintage wine
Review: Now and then it is healthy and rewarding AND enlightening to revisit some of the books in our libraries that are time-tested, durable pinnacles of literature. Such is the case of opening the cover of James Baldwin's inimitable, cherished novel GIOVANNI'S ROOM. Baldwin died in Paris in 1987 after gifting us with great novels and strong social commmentary. It is only fitting to return to the Paris of this wonderfully rich novel when the need to reflect on how writers of stature had the courage to begin the genre of novels dealing with same sex relationships in a manner of pure literature. GIOVANNI'S ROOM is a fluid, nonlinear exploration of alienation: the narrator is living in Paris (having escaped the US with the smilingly shallow American image descried by Parisians), heads toward a "comfortably normal courtship/engagement" with a very normal fellow American girl also living in Paris/Spain, and quite by accident encounters his repressed sexual self when he meets Giovanni, an expatriated Italian. The subcultures Baldwin details are palpably present on every page - many characters seem like enemies until their roles in the journey of these two men unfold and clarify. The title of the book is well chosen: Giovanni's room which he shares with David our narrator is claustrophobic, unkempt, dour, and threatening - an apt description of the mental environment this stumbling act of finding a new type of love creates. Baldwin lets us know from the start that we are entering a doomed affair of the heart and it is this atmospheric, eloquently written memoir that adds to the sense of the inevitable isolation that makes this a great novel. Enough cannot be said about the beauty of Baldwin's prose, the richness of his terse description of the city of Paris, his uncanny ability to paint characters that are wholly three-dimensional. This book merits frequent re-visits. It is a rare vintage wine.
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Summary: Great novel
Review: I have always found James Baldwin's novels to be incredibly boring and extremely over-worded. It's nice to have a change; I actually enjoyed this book. Once I started it, I found it almost impossible to put it down. This is a great book for anyone who is struggling with sexuality, identity, lost love, or just everyday problems. Even though the time setting is in the 1950's, anyone, in any time period, can relate to the lives of the characters in this novel. I myself found a link between my life and the life of the main character, David. We both were trying, in vain, to escape a terrible past (rather a past that seemed terrible in our own eyes) only to have it come back later on in our lives. For David, it was his struggle with figuring out his true sexual identity. It seems that in Paris, where the novel is set, people are more accepting of the whole gay/lesbian "conflict" than we (should I even say "we"?)Americans are. A huge percent of the American population is either gay/lesbian/bisexual or confused about their sexuality. It's a shame that we, as Americans, can't accept people for what they are. Sexuality has nothing to do with the character of a person, it's just the lifestyle they choose. This book will help anyone (well, anyone with an open mind anyway) understand that anyone can fall in love with anyone - no matter what sex - at any given time. Don't read the book just because it's about "gay people"; read it because you need some directions and/or guidelines in finding out who you really are and what you really want in life.
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Summary: One of Baldwin's Best Work
Review: Giovanni's Room is one of James Baldwin's best work of literature. In the book he expresses all the circumstance that went along with homosexuality in the 1950's set in Paris. His technique in writing the book is so great that if a person is not paying a lot of attention they probably wouldn't even know that the book is about homosexuality. Baldwin makes homosexuality seem like a simple everyday thing. He is not an explicit, provocative writer, yet you feel and see everything that he wrote. Instead of being all about physical acts, in the novel, he more discusses the emotional. Baldwin told of how homosexuality not only affects the person dealing with their sexuality, but the people that surround that person. He wrote of how most homosexuals have to live hiding who they really are just so that society will accept them.
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Summary: Influenced by Baldwin
Review: The book Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin really helped me understand how people feel when they are uncertain about their sexuality. Some people are still trying to hide how they feel by masking their feelings having a normal relationship with the opposite sex. This society makes those people feel alienated as well as uncomfortale about their prefference. This book taught the lesson of being comfortable with your sexuality.
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Summary: this truly is violent, excruciating prose- unforgettable
Review: There is one paragraph in this book that sums up its beauty, it's truth, it's tear-rending honesty- regardless whether one is gay or one is strait- "And this was perhaps the first time in my life that death occurred to me as a reality. I thought of the people before me who had looked down at the river and gone to sleep beneath it. I wondered about them. I wondered how they had done it- it, the physical act. I had thought of suicide when I was much younger, as, possibly, we all have, but then it would have been for revenge, it would have been my way of informing the world how awfully it had made me suffer. But the silence fo the evening, as I wandered home, had nothing to do witht hat storm, that far-off boy. I simply wondered about the dead because their days had ended and I did not know how I would get through mine." That, readers, sucks the marrow of life more so than many novels you'll come across in our short stay on this planet. It truly is universal, and it most certainly is beauty.
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Summary: Author's advent into homosexuality
Review: I first read this book when I was in the sixth grade and it was not until some time later that I realized it was about homosexuality. To be honest, I never realized this on my own - someone else told me. This is proof of the greatness of James Baldwin, he created characters, scenarios so commonplace that there was a modicum of relativity on every level of the story. He treated the situations and problems in Giovanni's Room as everyday happenstance - because they were and because they are. To deny this fact is like denying that there is air and earth and sky. No matter how unique an obstacle is for the characters Baldwin created - they are still the reality of the world in which they inhabit. So, it is their only reality and not unique to them - it is their life.
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Summary: Explores universal moral conflicts
Review: Foremost, Giovanni's Room is beautifully written. Baldwin writes incredibly well. It would be a mistake to see this book as singularly about homosexuality (and to either read it, or not, because of that alone). Baldwin explores universal problems using a specific character and context. What's most impressive is the way he describes, and then captures the consequences, of the moral dilemma. Though the context is homosexuality, I think similar conflict happens all too often, especially in relationships. You think you should be one thing or feel one way, and everything in your social, religious, intellectual voice tells you're right - except how you deep down feel. Baldwin has this one line about how hard it is to say "yes" to life. In that passage, I think he refers to how hard it is to reject your conventional self and embrace your deep down feelings. And this conflict could be about anything. Then, too, Baldwin shows how, the stronger you love someone who provokes such internal conflict, the stronger your own self-hatred and hatred for that person. How terrible to most want to hurt the person you most love.
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Summary: A Very Important Novel
Review: The first word that comes to mind when I think about Giovanni's Room is "poetic." Each word is thoughtfully placed in each sentence, creating a narrative that reflects not only the profound intellectualism of Baldwin, but also his sensitivity and depth as a human being. GIOVANNI's ROOM has established itself as an important queer novel. First published over 40 years ago, it captures the life of an expatriate, David, in Paris, and reveals his transformation. His transformation is multilayered, a complex and dynaic affair, yet the most obvious, and arguably, important one, is his sexual metamorphosis--brought about by Giovanni. The relevance of this novel is that most of us can empathize with David's struggle. How could we not? Balwin's words are rich and compelling. It lifted me from my reality into David's, and by the end of the novel (the last two sentences, I've read 1000 times), I felt like I knew exactly what David had gone through, because I was there with him, and because I'd been there in my own life as well.
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Summary: The Best Book I Ever Read
Review: Giovanni's Room was an excellent book about how society affects peoples lives. It tells the horrific tale of a man unsure of his sexual orientation and what he thinks is normal and not. Daivd isn't sure whether he should conform to society's standards or follow his heart. It a great story of the gradually deterioration of the human soul. Read It!
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Summary: Breathtaking
Review: I read this book as a course requirement for the University. An amazing move... As soon as I started reading this book I got involved with it emotionally. The book is so well written, with such passion that my deepest emotions were touched by it. Right now its my favorite book, I'm simply breathtaken by its stunning content!
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