Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin starts the same way it ends; in the thick of a presumably unending melancholy. Within the novel, Baldwin paints an ill-fated Parisian romance between an American man named David and an Italian bartender named Giovanni. Although I’m familiar with Baldwin’s work thanks to classics such as “Sonny’s Blues”, I found myself challenged not to come into the novel with preconceived notions. Questions swirled around in my head asking, “How much does this story have to do with Baldwin’s life?” and “How does this story reflect upon LGBTQ+ relationships of the time?”. However, I pushed these questions to the side in order to truly understand the complexities of the novel as the intended reader.
And thus I entered Giovanni’s room. The premise of the narrative is “What would happen if a man who was afraid of his sexuality fell in love with a man who needed love to save him?”. Within this premise, the controlling idea or the story’s, “ultimate meaning expressed through the…action and aesthetic emotion of the act’s last climax.” is expressed through David’s suppression of his feeling for Giovanni (Mckee 113). I struggled with identifying the premise of this novel because of the overarching themes within the text. The novel is narrated by David and because of this, it was easy to write his part of the premise. It was obvious that he was unable to love openly. At first I wrote down, “What would happen if there was a man who was afraid of his own sexuality?” and immediately knew it was wrong and tried again. Still, every result was the same. It wasn’t long before I realized that every premise that centered around David seemed a little flat and uneven. I instinctively knew that my premise had to feature Giovanni to make the premise become more rounded.
I began to examine Giovanni in relation to David’s struggle to accept and express his sexuality. Within my examination, I realized that David and Giovanni are on different wavelengths when it comes to their sexuality. David is afraid of his feelings for Giovanni and attempts to flee the relationship. However, Giovanni is afraid to be alone and clings to David. I found the scene where Giovanni is recently fired to be insightful to my discovery. Despite being embarrassed and emotionally bruised all he can think about is David. Giovanni says, “‘I do not know what I would do if you left me….I have been alone so long-I do not think I would be able to live if I had to be alone again” (Baldwin 110). I realized during my second reading that this is foreshadowing. In a way, Giovanni is warning David about his emotional fragility that leads him to murder Guillaume.
However, David does not heed this warning. Before they leave for drinks Giovanni says, “Je t’aime, tu sais?” ‘I love you. Do you know?’ to which David replies “Je la sais, mon Vieux” ‘I know my friend.’ (Baldwin 111). This scene was heartbreaking to reread. This is because David’s words portrays his intent. He calls Giovanni his friend and intended to treat him as such. However, Giovanni’s words showcase vulnerability. It became obvious to me that while David was afraid of love Giovanni was desperate for it. By the end of reading this scene, I realized I had the missing piece to complete my premise.
This scene helped me through my understanding of the controlling idea and the counter Idea. Throughout the novel, there’s a construct struggle between two values. The first is the idea that suppression of love leads to a life filled with loneliness and anger and the other is that loving someone honestly allows you to have an authentic relationship with them. Part of Baldwin’s brilliance is that it’s obvious from the start that the negatively charged controlling idea will win out in the end: David constantly chooses self-preservation over his love for Giovanni. Still the reader is sucked into the constant internal struggle of choice until Giovanni dies and David realizes he doesn’t have a choice anymore. He’ll always be haunted by Giovanni and the memory of his room. And, in a way, through experiencing the melancholy of this novel I am too.
A Little Bookish 