dangerous liaisons and hidden violence, an American finds himself unable to repress his impulses, despite his determination to live the conventional life he envisions for himself. After meeting and proposing to a young woman, he falls into a lengthy affair with an Italian bartender and is confounded and tortured by his sexual identity as he oscillates between the two."
I picked this book up on a whim at the library. I had no idea what it was about. I had never heard of it before, and I must be honest, I didn't put the name James Baldwin together with the Civil Rights Activist I was taught about in school. So, I had no idea I was about to read one of best book I have yet read.
This book unravelled me completely. I felt like my whole body was strung out by the sheer, inexorable weight of this story. During reading, I often found myself having to close the book and just process. Giovanni's Room is one of the rawest, most wounding and open-chested portraits of what it is like to burn with the fires of self-loathing as a result of internalized hate, and to wrestle, every day, from the webbing of a shame that stains, indelibly, yourself and everything you love.
There is viciousness, lust, loneliness, sensuality, deception, sorrow, tenderness, despair, and ultimately tragedy that makes this book easily one of the top 100 best books I’ve ever read. Every reader will find something of themselves in this book, maybe not the part of themselves that they want to hold up to the mirror, but certainly a fragment, disdainful in nature or worthy of pity, that can not be denied.
It is classified as a "gay book." I think that is a overly simplified grouping, it is a book about doomed love. I do not think that you have to be queer to enjoy or relate to this book. You must only have felt out of place, a stranger in a strange land, to have looked at yourself in the mirror and not liked what you saw. To have felt the deep well of loneliness and meaningless desperation that comes with living as a human. Baldwin explores and expresses the torments of humanity and love, through his achingly beautiful prose that often left me breathless. David is profoundly selfish, and evasive to the attention he receives. He paradoxically wants love but cannot bear the responsibilities that go with it. He is an unlikable man, yet you cannot help but emote with him. You cannot help but feel all of his pain and regret and loathing.
Truly a haunting read, one that will stay with you long after you have finished it. My review cannot do it justice, I merely urge you to read it.
Age Rating 16+. An insinuations of rape, murder, execution and prostitution but nothing overt.
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