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= Giovanni's_Room =
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Introduction
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'Giovanni's Room' is a 1956 novel by James Baldwin. The book concerns
the events in the life of an American man living in Paris and his
feelings and frustrations with his relationships with other men in his
life, particularly an Italian bartender named Giovanni whom he meets
at a Parisian gay bar. While he deals with his difficulties with men,
he is engaged to an American woman who is travelling in Spain.
Baldwin’s novel was considered controversial upon release in 1956, and
has since prompted complex discussions on many issues, including
representations of homosexuality, bisexuality and struggles with
internalized homophobia. The novel also raises questions of social
alienation, identity, masculinity, and manhood.
Plot
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David, a young American 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. Baldwin tackles social
isolation, gender and sexual identity crisis, as well as conflicts of
masculinity within this story of a young bisexual man navigating the
public sphere in a society that rejects a core aspect of his
sexuality.
Part one
==========
David, in Southern France, is about to board a 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. The two bonded and eventually had a sexual encounter during
a sleepover. The two boys began kissing and having sex. The next day,
David left, and a little later he took to bullying Joey in order 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 being a good
example to his son. David's father says that all he wants is for David
to become a real man. Later, David begins drinking, too, and drinks
and drives once, ending up in an accident. Back home, the two men
talk, and David convinces his father to let him skip college and get a
job instead. He then decides to move to France to find himself.
After a year in Paris, penniless, he calls Jacques, an older gay male
acquaintance, to meet him for supper so he can ask for money. (In a
prolepsis, Jacques and David meet again and discuss Giovanni's fall.)
The two men go to Guillaume's gay bar. They meet Giovanni, the new
bartender, at whom Jacques tries to make a pass until he gets talking
with Guillaume. Meanwhile, David and Giovanni become friends. Later,
they all go to a restaurant in Les Halles for breakfast. 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 prone to making trouble.
Later, the two men go back to Giovanni's room and they have sex.
Flashing forward again to 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 moves into Giovanni's small room. They broach the subject of
Hella, about whom Giovanni is not worried, but who reveals the
Italian's misogynistic prejudices about women and the need for men to
dominate them. 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, but he does not want to do that. The young man
walks into a sailor; David believes the sailor is a gay man, though it
is unclear whether this is true or if the sailor is just staring back
at David.
A subsequent letter from Hella announces that she is returning in a
few days, and David realizes he has to part with Giovanni soon.
Setting off to prove to himself that he is not gay, David searches for
a woman with whom he can have sex. He meets a slight acquaintance,
Sue, in a bar and they go back to her place and have sex; he does not
want to see her again and has only slept with 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 and falsely accused
of stealing from the till.
Hella eventually comes back and David leaves Giovanni's room with no
notice for three days. He sends a letter to his father asking for
money for their marriage. The couple then runs into Jacques and
Giovanni in a bookshop, which makes Hella uncomfortable because 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. David thinks that they cannot have a life together and
feels that he would be sacrificing his manhood if he stays with
Giovanni. He leaves, but runs into Giovanni several times and is upset
by the "fairy" mannerisms that he is developing and his new
relationship with Jacques, who is an older and richer man. Sometime
later, David finds out that Giovanni is no longer with Jacques and
that he might be able to get a job at Guillaume's bar again.
News suddenly comes out that Guillaume has been murdered, and Giovanni
is castigated in all the newspapers. David imagines that Giovanni went
back into the bar to ask for a job, going so far as to sacrifice his
dignity and agree to sleep with Guillaume. He imagines that, after
Giovanni has compromised himself, Guillaume makes excuses for why he
cannot rehire him as a bartender; in reality, they both know that
Giovanni is no longer of interest to Guillaume's bar's clientele since
so much of his life has been played out in public. Giovanni responds
by killing Guillaume in rage. Giovanni attempts to hide, but he is
discovered by the police and sentenced to death for murder. Hella and
David then move to the South of France, where they discuss gender
roles and Hella expresses her desire to live under a man as a woman.
David, wracked with guilt over Giovanni's impending execution, leaves
her and goes to Nice for a few days, where he spends his time with a
sailor. Hella finds him and discovers his bisexuality, which she says
she suspected all along. She bitterly decides to go back to America.
The book ends with David's mental pictures of Giovanni's execution and
his own guilt.
Characters
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*David, the protagonist and the novel's narrator. A blond American
man, David spends a lot of the novel battling with his sexuality and
his internalized homophobia. His mother died when he was five years
old.
*Hella, David's girlfriend. They met in a bar in . She is from
Minneapolis and moved to Paris to study painting, until she threw in
the towel and met David by serendipity. Throughout the novel David
intends to marry her.
*Giovanni, a young Italian man who left his village after his
girlfriend gave birth to a dead child. He works as a bartender in
Guillaume's gay bar. Giovanni is the titular character whose romantic
relationship with David leads them to spend a large amount of the
story in his apartment. Giovanni's room itself is very dirty with
rotten potatoes and wine spilled across the place.
*Jacques, an old American businessman, born in Belgium. He spends
money on younger men, one of whom is David.
*Guillaume, the owner of a gay bar in Paris, who also pays for the
company of younger men.
*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 young man at the restaurant, implied to be a rent boy.
*Yves, a tall, pockmarked young 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, and two of their three sons died. Their
living son has a son, also named Mario.
*Sue, a blonde girl from Philadelphia who comes from a rich family and
with whom David has a brief and regretful sexual encounter.
*David's father. His relationship with David is masked by artificial
heartiness; he cannot bear to acknowledge that they are not close and
he might have failed in raising his son. He married for the second
time after David was grown but before the action in the novel takes
place. Throughout the novel David's father sends David money to
sustain himself in Paris and begs David to return to America.
*Ellen, David's paternal aunt. She would read books and knit; at
parties she would dress skimpily, with too much make-up on. She
worried that David's father was an inappropriate influence on David's
development.
*Joey, a neighbor in Coney Island, Brooklyn. David's first same-sex
experience was with him.
*Beatrice, a woman David's father sees.
*The Fairy, whom David had a relationship with in the army, and who
was later discharged for being gay.
Social alienation
===================
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." In 'Giovanni's Room', David is faced with the same
type of decision; on the surface he faces a choice between his
American fiancée (and value set) and his European boyfriend, but
ultimately, like Baldwin, he must grapple with "being alienated by the
culture that produced him."
Baldwin also develops this theme through other characters who appear
in his novel, such as Giovanni. Both by David and by his background as
an Italian immigrant, Giovanni is found to be isolated throughout the
book. Giovanni is pinned as 'alien' by David, in which he becomes a
figure of mystery, though the reader does learn a lot about Giovanni
in relation to David, there is not much revealed about Giovanni
himself, apart from small revelations about his social status and
class, which work to separate him from the other characters in the
novel, such as Jacques, Guillaume and David. Thus, Giovanni faces
issues of social alienation by both the information given to the
reader and the information that is withheld from the reader - which
may have been how Baldwin felt with his social presence in America.
Identity
==========
In keeping with the theme of social alienation, this novel also
explores the topics of origin and identity. As Valerie Rohy of the
University of Vermont argues, "Questions of origin and identity are
central to James Baldwin's 'Giovanni's Room', a text which not only
participates in the tradition of the American expatriate novel
exemplified by Stein and, especially, by Henry James but which does so
in relation to the African-American idiom of passing and the genre of
the passing novel. As such, 'Giovanni's Room' poses questions of
nationalism, nostalgia, and the constitution of racial and sexual
subjects in terms that are especially resonant for contemporary
identity politics.
Sexuality and race
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Scholars at the time of the publication of the book had the mindset
that whiteness was transvalued as heterosexuality and blackness as
homosexuality. Giovanni’s room presents 'race' in different ways. All
characters are portrayed through David’s experiences and prejudices;
he is the representation of whiteness; he is tall and blond-haired; he
grows up in a toxic environment regarding masculinity; and he
struggles throughout the novel between his internalised homophobia and
his sexuality. On the contrary, Joey and Giovanni, the two men David
had relations with, are both described as dark by David. Giovanni, in
particular, is coded as black in David’s perception. First, it is said
that Giovanni’s enthusiasm is of a “blacker brand” than his, stating a
clear difference between the two men. Furthermore, Italians
immigrating to the United States were for a long time considered not
to be white; they had special cases in the form of immigration as
'North Italian' or 'Sicilian' rather than whites. It was not until the
mid-1950s, when the book was published, that Italian Americans were
beginning to be considered whites. It is suggested that Italians
acquire white status and privileges in the United States, so Italians
living in Italy are still viewed as coloured or non-whites. In the
novel, David clearly has this mindset, and it shows in his perception
of Giovanni. David felt superior to Giovanni also because of his
social class, which is also a sign of his 'blackness'. White people in
the United States, especially from upper-class families like David,
often view non-whites as inferior. Indeed, Giovanni came from a poor
village in southern Italy and had in Paris a precarious job as a
bartender with a small wage with which he could only provide for
himself, and his class made him darker for someone like David with all
his prejudices.
Baldwin, in 'Giovanni’s Room', deconstructed the discourse about
sexuality and race and highlighted that the idea that whiteness
opposed blackness and heterosexuality opposed homosexuality is false
and that they are related and dependent.
The novel was viewed as a 'raceless' novel, thus being studied mainly
in sexual manners rather than racial studies, but it clearly
challenges the notion of a novel about white people having no race.
Masculinity
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David grapples with insecurities pertaining to his masculinity
throughout the novel. He spends much of his time comparing himself to
every man he meets, ensuring that his performative masculinity allows
him to "pass" while negotiating the public sphere. For David,
masculinity is intertwined with sexual identity, and thus he believes
that his same-sex desires act against his masculinity. One of David’s
prominent male figures is his alcoholic father, with whom he holds a
complex and sensitive relationship. After a drunk driving incident,
David is met by his father in the hospital, where his father
repeatedly reassures David that he "is going to be all right", to
which David replies "Daddy" and begins to cry. This moment of expected
vulnerability from David and his father cements the pain behind their
relationship, which can be seen to cause David to put up a front of
masculinity, which--to him--does not coincide with his sexual
attractions.
Manhood
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The phrase 'manhood' repeats throughout the book, in much the same
ways that masculinity manifests itself. The difference between the two
themes, in this case, is that David's manhood seems to be more to do
with his sexual relationships, whereas his masculinity is guided by
learned public behaviours he claims to inherit from his father. The
self-loathing and projecting that ensues seem to depict the final blow
to a man who already had a great amount of dysphoria. Baldwin's
positioning of manhood within the narrative aligns it also with
nationhood, sexuality and all facets of performance within the public
sphere. Josep Armengol linked Baldwin's description of manhood as a
way of him navigating his experiences of blackness in the LGBTQ+
community, particularly when David describes his earliest same-sex
encounter with a boy called Joey. In this description "black" becomes
a motif for experience and his dark thoughts surrounding Joey and his
body.
LGBTQ+ spaces and movement in the public sphere
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Much of the integral plot of 'Giovanni's Room' occurs within queer
spaces, with the gay bar David frequents being the catalyst that not
only drives the plot, but allows it to occur. The bar acts as a
mediator for David, Baldwin uses this setting to bring up much of the
conflict of the novel, however, it remains a place that David returns
to. Meanwhile, Giovanni’s room acts as a private space where Giovanni
and David can return to in order to avoid public scrutiny. It is the
place where they can actively live out their queerness. David rejects
the room as much as he rejects his queerness, linking the privacy and
life of queer people together. The novel negotiates the behavior of
publicly LGBTQ+ people alongside those who are still "closeted", like
David, and how these differing perspectives have an effect on the
individual as well as the community that they navigate. Even within
the public queer spaces like the bar, they act differently than in the
safety of Giovanni’s room. Away from the scrutiny of other people,
David is more ready to display his affections. These differences of
how David acts in different spaces shows the intersectionality of
class and sexuality that is explored in the novel. Not everyone is
able to afford private spaces based on their class status. With that,
not everyone is able has spaces to be queer in as the public sphere
does not allow it. This can be seen at the end of the novel, when all
falls apart because Giovanni needs money and is forced into the public
sphere. The private sphere is a protection from the public sphere and
its loss has dire consequences. The less money one is able to make,
the more likely this is to happen while high class people do not
experience similar fears of loss.
Question of bisexuality
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Ian Young argues that the novel portrays homosexual and bisexual life
in western society as uncomfortable and uncertain, respectively. Young
also points out that despite the novel's "tenderness and positive
qualities" it still ends with a murder.
Recent scholarship has focused on the more precise designation of
bisexuality within the novel. Several scholars have claimed that the
characters can be more accurately seen as bisexual, namely David and
Giovanni. As Maiken Solli claims, though most people read the
characters as gay/homosexual, "a bisexual perspective could be just as
valuable and enlightening in understanding the book, as well as
exposing the bisexual experience."
Though the novel is considered a homosexual and bisexual novel,
Baldwin has on occasion stated that it was "not so much about
homosexuality, it is what happens if you are so afraid that you
finally cannot love anybody". The novel's protagonist, David, seems
incapable of deciding between Hella and Giovanni and expresses both
hatred and love for the two, though he often questions if his feelings
are authentic or superficial.
Internalised homophobia
=========================
Leading on from David’s issues with his masculinity, another key
dilemma became prevalent - David’s struggle with internalised
homophobia. As Alaina Masanto states, David “has internalized the
social hatred directed towards him”. This problem presses onto David's
psyche and becomes alarmingly apparent in his first encounter with
Giovanni. As they meet in a Parisian gay bar, David appears reluctant
to speak to Giovanni, though once their conversation begins, he falls
in love. He continuously denies these feelings, until he cannot, and
he ends up repeatedly staying in Giovanni's room, which David
describes as dark and dingy, a room of shame and sin.
Santiago Herrera describes this darkness that David sees in the room,
stating: "Just as the tightening noose of heteronormative oppression
gets ever closer to David through Hella, so too does the painting
remind him of his indecision. Giovanni's room is dark, with only one
window with soaped-up panes instead of curtains for privacy and trash
all over. When the boys go out, it's in the early mornings or at
night, before or after Giovanni's shifts as a bartender. Their lives
are always shrouded in a darkness of some kind, and it only worsens
when Hella comes to Paris."
David's push-pull relationship with Giovanni and his murky
relationship with Hella showcases his torn mental state; he finds
himself falling into this 'dark side' yet he cannot pull himself out
of it as a result of his internalised homophobia.
Inspiration
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An argument can be made that David resembles Baldwin in Paris as he
left America after growing up under its racism. David, though not a
victim of racism like Baldwin himself, is an American who escapes to
Paris. However, when asked if the book was autobiographical in an
interview in 1980, Baldwin explains he was influenced by his
observations in Paris, but the novel was not necessarily shaped by his
own experiences:
Literary significance and criticism
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Even though Baldwin states that "the sexual question and the racial
question have always been entwined", in 'Giovanni's Room', all of the
characters are white. This was a surprise for his readers, since
Baldwin was primarily known for his novel 'Go Tell It on the
Mountain', which puts emphasis on the African-American experience.
Highlighting the impossibility of tackling two major issues at once in
America, Baldwin stated:
Nathan A. Scott Jr., for example, stated that 'Go Tell It on the
Mountain' showed Baldwin's "passionate identification" with his people
whereas 'Giovanni's Room' could be considered "as a deflection, as a
kind of detour." Baldwin's identity as a gay and black man was
questioned by both black and white people. His masculinity was called
into question, due to his apparent homosexual desire for white men -
this caused him to be labelled as similar to a white woman. He was
considered to be "not black enough" by his fellow race because of
this, and labeled subversive by the Civil rights movement leaders.
Baldwin's American publisher, Knopf, suggested that he "burn" the book
because the theme of homosexuality would alienate him from his
readership among black people. He was told, "You cannot afford to
alienate that audience. This new book will ruin your career, because
you're not writing about the same things and in the same manner as you
were before, and we won't publish this book as a favor to you."
However, upon publication critics tended not to be so harsh thanks to
Baldwin's standing as a writer. 'Giovanni's Room' was ranked number 2
on a list of the best 100 gay and lesbian novels compiled by The
Publishing Triangle in 1999.
On November 5, 2019, the 'BBC News' listed 'Giovanni's Room' on its
list of the 100 most influential novels.
The 2020 novel 'Swimming in the Dark' by Polish writer Tomasz
Jedrowski presents a fictionalized depiction of LGBTQ life in the
Polish People's Republic. Citing 'Giovanni's Room' as a major
influence in his writing, Jedrowski pays homage to Baldwin by
incorporating the novel into his narrative, the two main characters
beginning an affair after one lends a copy of 'Giovanni's Room' to the
other.
Most criticism of the novel has focused on the role of
heterosexuality.
Santiago Herrera attempts to provide more insight into why 'Giovanni’s
Room' was so heavily criticised: "Early critics of 'Giovanni's Room'
were split in two: they either did not like it because the main
characters, David and Giovanni, were explicitly shown in a same-sex
relationship, or because David was white. 63 years after the novel’s
publication, this still makes me wonder: why was there so much initial
opposition? Why was there so much controversy over David just being an
average American man? The answer, Baldwin was black." As Herrera
states, much of the criticism was due to Baldwin’s race, even though
the novel was deliberately written to focus on sexuality alone. While
Baldwin was attempting to write a more or less "raceless" novel, this
could not be achieved due to the societal yearning for racial
discourse.
Adaptations
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In the late 1970s, filmmaker Michael Raeburn began working with James
Baldwin on a movie adaptation of 'Giovanni's Room', with Baldwin
writing the screenplay, and an all-star cast possibly including Robert
De Niro and Marlon Brando; however, the project stalled and was
eventually abandoned in the wake of financial demands made by
Baldwin's agent.
A BBC Radio 3 dramatization of 'Giovanni's Room' by Neil Bartlett was
broadcast in 2010.
In 2024, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a five-part reading of the novel by
Kyle Soller.
In 2025, Phoenix Dance Theatre toured the UK with a modern dance
adaptation, entitled 'Inside Giovanni's Room'.
Also in 2025, Quintessence Theatre Group in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, produced the first stage adaptation of 'Giovanni's Room'
approved by James Baldwin's estate. Phylicia Rashad served as a
creative consultant, with Billy Porter as a production sponsor.
Namesake
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Philly AIDS Thrift at Giovanni's Room, also known as PAT @ Giovanni's
Room and formerly known as Giovanni's Room Bookstore, is a gay
bookstore in Philadelphia named after 'Giovanni's Room'. It has been
called the "center of gay Philly".
Censorship
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In April 2025, the Lukashenko regime added the book to the List of
printed publications containing information messages and materials,
the distribution of which could harm the national interests of
Belarus.
See also
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* James Baldwin in France
License
=========
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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni's_Room
