Giovanni's Room

infobox Book |
name = Giovanni's Room
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Pulp Paperback Reprint
author = James Baldwin
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = Dial Press, N.Y. (Signet Books for edition shown)
release_date = 1956 (1959 for edition shown)
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 159 pp (144 pp for edition shown)
isbn = 0-385-33458-3
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"Giovanni's Room" is James Baldwin's second novel, first published in 1956. [Stryker, Susan. "Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback" (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2001), page 104.]

"Giovanni's Room" is noteworthy for bringing complex representations of homosexuality to a reading public with empathy and artistry, thereby fostering a broader public discourse of issues regarding same-sex desire. [Bronski, Michael, ed. "Pulp Friction: Uncovering the Golden Age of Gay Male Pulps". New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2003, pages 10-11.]

Plot introduction

David, a young American white man whose girlfriend has gone off to Spain to contemplate marriage, is left alone in Paris and begins an affair with an Italian man, Giovanni. The entire story is narrated by David during "the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life," when Giovanni will be executed.

Plot summary

Part One

David, in the South of France, is about to take the train back to Paris. His girlfriend Hella, to whom he had proposed before she went to Spain, has returned to the United States. As for Giovanni, he is about to be guillotined.

David remembers his first experience with a boy, Joey, who lived in Brooklyn too. The two boys started kissing and making love; the next day David left, and a little later he took to bullying Joey, to feel like a real man.

David now lives with his father, who is prone to drinking, and his aunt, Ellen. The latter upbraids the father for not setting himself as a good example to his son. Later David comes home drinking too, and drinks and drives once, ends up in an accident. Back home the two men talk, and David talks his father into letting him not go to college and getting a job instead. He then decides to move to France to find himself.

After a year in Paris, penniless, he calls Jacques to meet him for supper and ask for money. In a prolepsis, Jacques and David meet again and talk about Giovanni's fall. Back into the plotline, the two men go to Guillaume's gay bar. They meet Giovanni, whom Jacques tries to make a pass at, until he gets talking with Guillaume. Meanwhile, David and Giovanni become friends. Later, they all go to a restaurant in Les Halles; Jacques enjoins David not to be ashamed to feel love; they eat oysters and drink white wine. Giovanni recounts how he met Guillaume in a cinema, how the two men had dinner together because Giovanni wanted a free meal. He also explains that Guillaume is prompt to making trouble. Later, the two men go back to Giovanni's room and they have sex.

On the day of Giovanni's execution, David is in his house in the South of France. The caretaker comes round for the inventory, as he is moving out the next day. She encourages him to get married, have children, and pray.

Part Two

David and Giovanni broach the subject of Hella, thus revealing Giovanni's misogyny. David then briefly describes Giovanni's room, which is always in the dark because there are no curtains and they need their own privacy. He goes on to read a letter from his father, asking him to go back to America. The young man walks into a sailor, who finds him out as a gay man. Next Hella's letter informs him that she is coming back in a few days - he has to part with Giovanni soon. In a bar he sees Sue and they go back to her place and have sex; he does not want to see her again and has only just used her to feel better about himself. When he returns to the room, David finds a hysterical Giovanni, who has been fired from Guillaume's bar.

Hella eventually comes back and David sends a letter to his father asking for money for their marriage. The couple then walks into Jacques and Giovanni in a bookshop, which makes Hella uncomfortable - she does not like Jacques's mannerisms. After walking Hella back to her hotel room, David goes to Giovanni's room to talk - the Italian man is distressed. Sometime later, David walks into Yves and finds out Giovanni is no longer with Jacques and that he might be able to get him job at Guillaume's bar again.

The news of Guillaume's murder suddenly comes out, and Giovanni is castigated in all newspapers. David fancies that Giovanni went back into the bar to ask for a job, then Guillaume tried to flirt with him and Giovanni killed the man, not 'meaning' to do it.

Hella and David then move to the South of France; David leaves off to Nice for a few days, where he spends his time with a sailor. Hella finds him and bitterly decides to go back to America. The book ends with David's mental pictures of Giovanni's execution and his own guilt.

Characters

*David, a blond American. The protagonist. His mother died when he was five years old.
*Hella, David's girlfriend. They met in a bar in Saint Germain des Pres. She is from Minneapolis and moved to Paris to study painting, until she threw in the towel and met David by serendipity.
*Giovanni, an Italian boy, who left his village after his girlfriend gave birth to a dead child. He works as a waiter in Guillaume's gay bar.
*Joey. He lived in Coney Island, Brooklyn.
*Ellen, David's paternal aunt. She would read books and knit; at parties she would dress skimpily, with too much make-up on.
*Beatrice, a woman David's father sees.
*the fairy, whom David met at the army, and who was later discharged for being gay.
*Jacques, an old American businessman, born in Belgium.
*Guillaume, the owner of a gay bar in Paris.
*the flaming princess, an older man who tells David inside the gay bar that Giovanni is very dangerous.
*Madame Clothilde, the owner of the restaurant in Les Halles.
*Pierre, a man at the restaurant.
*Yves, a tall man playing the pinball machine in the restaurant.
*the caretaker in the South of France. She was born in Italy and moved to France as a child. Her husband's name is Mario; they lost all their money in the Second World War. Their son has a son, named Mario too.
*Sue, a blonde girl from Philadelphia, from a rich family.
*sailor from Nice

Major themes

One theme of "Giovanni's Room" is social alienation. Susan Stryker notes that prior to writing Giovanni's room, James Baldwin had recently emigrated to Europe and "felt that the effects of racism in the United States would never allow him to be seen simply as a writer, and he feared that being tagged as gay would mean he couldn't be a writer at all." [Stryker, Susan. "Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback" (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2001), page 104.] In "Giovanni's Room", David is faced with the same type of decision; on the surface he faces a choice between his American fiancee (and value set) and his European boyfriend, but ultimately, like Baldwin, he must grapple with "being alienated by the culture that produced him." [Stryker, Susan. "Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback" (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2001), page 104.]

Another theme of the novel explores sexuality and gender roles including homosexuality, homophobia and its interrelation with gender roles (encompassing feminism with Hella and Sue), and misogyny. The novel also presents a historical look at law enforcements concerning homosexuality in France and in the United States.

On a psychological level, the narrator (David) and Giovanni show very different ways of dealing with their homosexual feelings. Both have had relationships with women, and it is not entirely clear whether they would be labeled gay or bisexual in current terminology. While David opts for the "easy way out" in deciding to commit to his girlfried Hella, Giovanni believes that it is possible to build a life with another man. Eventually, this belief (or hope) leads to his own tragedy. Though some readers interpret David's and Giovanni's differing strategies to be reflective of the differences in their sexual orientation (the affair is an experiment for David while Giovanni takes it more seriously), it seems important that Giovanni leaves Italy for Paris in an attempt to run away from his past; shortly before his departure from southern Italy, his girlfried had given birth to a dead boy.

Literary significance and criticism

Baldwin admitted that his publisher first told him to "burn" the book because the theme of homosexuality would alienate him from his Negro readership. [Fern Marja Eckman, "The Furious Passage of James Baldwin", New York: M. Evans & Co., 1966, page 137] However, upon publication critics tended not to be so harsh thanks to Baldwin's standing as a writer. [James Levin, "The Gay Novel in America", New York:Garland Publishing, 1991, page 143]

Footnotes

References

*cite book | title=Playing the Game: The Homosexual Novel in America| last=Austen | first =Roger | authorlink= | publisher=The Bobbs-Merrill Company| location = Indianapolis | edition =1st ed. | date=1977 | id=ISBN 978-067252287X
*cite book | title=Pulp Friction: Uncovering the Golden Age of Gay Male Pulps | last=Bronski | first =Michael | publisher=St. Martin's Griffin | location=New York, NY | edition =1st ed. | date=2003 | id= ISBN 978-0312252676
*cite book | title=The Furious Passage of James Baldwin| last=Eckman | first =Fern Marja | authorlink= | publisher=M. Evans & Co| location = New York | edition =1st ed. | date=1966
*cite book | title=The Gay Novel in America | last=Levin | first =James | authorlink= | publisher=Garland Publishing| location = New York | edition =1st ed. | date=1991 | id=ISBN 978-0824061487
*cite book | title=Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback | last=Stryker | first =Susan | publisher=Chronicle Books | location=San Francisco, CA | edition =1st ed. | date=2001 | id= ISBN 978-0811830209