Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Giovanni's Room
Book Review: disturbing, unpleasant, but what a read!
Summary: 4 Stars
Although this was a book I read in one stretch, I had mixed feelings about the story after the last page. One of the striking things about the book was how recognisable the characters still are. The story is written in 1956, about the Paris gay scene of 1953. The story I read was about Amsterdam 1999. The main thing that bothered me was the main character. David is a guy who has the power to transmit to everyone around him a sense of defeat and purposelessness. He is an emotional parasite, who flourishes by draining out of Giovanni and Hella the vitality that both are trying to preserve with difficulty.
In a certain way, I feel that the story should not have been told the way we read it. David (the main character) is a writer. He emotionally destroyed the two people closest to him. And instead of hiding out in shame, he tells us every nasty detail of it.
Book Review: my favorite book of all time
Summary: 5 Stars
i love givannis room so much, james baldwin writes a story that is short and compact, but oh so good. Giovannias room is an extrememly easy read, i had to read it again after i read it the first time. I saw a bit of myself in the characters, which made it especially interesting to me. Im sure you will find a bit of yourself in the characters as well. There are people who love and those who are loved and its hard not to be able to relate to this story. it is my fav book of all time, and it started me on all of james baldwins great books.Book Review: this truly is violent, excruciating prose- unforgettable
Summary: 5 Stars
There is one paragraph in this book that sums up its beauty, it's truth, it's tear-rending honesty- regardless whether one is gay or one is strait-"And this was perhaps the first time in my life that death occurred to me as a reality. I thought of the people before me who had looked down at the river and gone to sleep beneath it. I wondered about them. I wondered how they had done it- it, the physical act. I had thought of suicide when I was much younger, as, possibly, we all have, but then it would have been for revenge, it would have been my way of informing the world how awfully it had made me suffer. But the silence fo the evening, as I wandered home, had nothing to do witht hat storm, that far-off boy. I simply wondered about the dead because their days had ended and I did not know how I would get through mine."
That, readers, sucks the marrow of life more so than many novels you'll come across in our short stay on this planet. It truly is universal, and it most certainly is beauty.