David, an American man who is engaged to Hella, leaves his hometown to visit Paris while his fiancée is in Spain. In Paris, David meets and falls in love with Giovanni, an Italian waiter who comes to France to work.
David is a naturally gay man who discovered his sexuality during the summer of his adolescence when he had sex with his friend Joey, an experience he described as "But to be freed from this terrible, unfathomable pain is joy; We shared joy that night." It appears that a human life would not have been long enough for you and me to perform an act of love back then." Yet it was David who never had the courage to admit his sexuality, learn about himself, and be free. David is scared, and he wants to hide his instinctive sexual desires behind his heterosexual appearance.
To David, those longings, those feelings of lust for men, especially when he was around Giovanni, were nothing more than lust for sex, an unclean burden he had to bear. Distance yourself from it. James Baldwin, himself a gay man, has skillfully described David's complicated and melancholy inner world, as well as psychological and emotional developments, in a very appealing way, with sentences that are very appealing. The writing is sometimes numbingly good, sometimes naked and cold, depending on the plot's ups and downs and the behavior of the characters. Perhaps James Baldwin based David's character on himself, as he left his American homeland for Europe, specifically France, to avoid anti-gay attitudes and discrimination. Racism occurred in the United States during the 1950s. The only thing that distinguishes David's character from the author who created him is the color of his skin. James Baldwin is a black author, whereas David is a white character. As James Baldwin admitted at the time of writing Giovanni's Room, he was not yet capable of writing a book that would contain both of the burdens he had to bear: the burden of being black and the burden of being black. People who are gay.
Despite the two of them having lived together in the waiter's room for months, David's refusal to acknowledge his true self and come to Giovanni brings the story to an emotional climax and tragedy. Especially when both characters are surrounded by two gay and vulgar old men, Jacques and Guillaume, with Guillaume being Giovanni's boss and a man who enjoys hunting young men for sexual pleasure. Particularly when David's fiancée returns from Spain and David chooses to stay with Hella, opting for a safe, stable life with a marriage ahead of him. Jealousy, the mysterious situation of a David trapped in self-deception and denied sexual orientation, conflicts in how David perceives Giovanni in comparison to the lustful gaze that Guillaume and other gay and rough old men who come to Paris to find quick sexual pleasures placed on young boys' bodies... all contribute to a painfully excellent "Room of Giovanni" heart.
The scene in which David returns to see Giovanni one last time in the room they've shared for a short time captures all of the climaxes, sullen joys, genuine feelings, and rejection by a self-delusional David about his own choice. And Giovanni, oh Giovanni, who saw his heart, his feelings trampled on, despised, and thrown back by the very person he foolishly loved... David's decision precipitated all of the tragedies and drama that ensued, resulting in a bleak outcome for the characters. After all, it's because David is so weak that he can't allow himself to live up to his sexual desires, always unwilling to confront the fact that he is gay, and no one in the novel understands this. Is there a happy ending to this theory? Or is it because he keeps telling himself that he wants children, a home, a family, money, and stability - things that his love affair with a poor boy, working as a waiter, and living in a room that always smells like the working class can't provide - but has David chosen which he has chosen?
Paris, both in the story and in Colm Tóibn's Introduction at the back of the book, appears as the precise destination, the ultimate perfect setting for this uncontrollable love story to take place. In comparison to many other cities in Europe at the time, Paris was a well-known gathering place for all people, behaviors, and emotions that went beyond the usual moral and social framework. All backgrounds, all ethnicities, all depths of the human soul and ego can be found in 1950s Paris. However, Paris emerges in all its splendor and splendor under the pen of James Baldwin. Paris is known as the city of light, the city of love, and the epicenter of lust and debauchery.
James Baldwin is a great author of American and world literature, and has even been hailed as one of the best writers of his generation. This publisher never lets me down. I only have to comment on one place, a footnote to a French phrase on page 78, because the translator is incorrect. The phrase "bon marché" cannot be translated as "good market" as it appears in the book, but must be translated as "cheap." French is difficult for me because I learned it before I could see it, the word is written that way, and I have to understand it in a different way.
To summarize, "Giovanni's room" is a dark yet enlightening hymn to the characters' quest for self and entrenched beliefs. I highly recommend this novel to anyone, regardless of whether they enjoy reading about gay love. Because this is such an important book in the writing career of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers, James Baldwin, it must be read, even though it admits that there are many places in his work where it is not. I'm not sure I understand.