I like to
collect nice-looking hardcovers of classic books, so whenever I hit a used
bookstore, I’ll scrounge around and see what I can find. However, between the
amount of time I generally make for reading and the fact that I read a mixture
of both classic and contemporary literature, I have a lot of books that I
picked up some time ago and haven’t gotten around to reading yet. (Much like my
watch lists on my streaming subscriptions somehow never seem to get shorter.)
As such, I own two James Baldwin titles that I hadn’t read, Go Tell It on the Mountain and Giovanni’s Room. The last time I was
between books, I knew I wanted to read one of them, and since this was during
Pride Month, I went with the latter (a few spoilers.)
David, a
young American living in Paris, begins a reckoning with himself when his
fiancée travels to Spain without him. He meets and falls in love with Giovanni,
an immigrant from Italy working in a gay bar. The two men’s relationship is
charged and deep, but as Giovanni begins to hold on more tightly, David resists
the true emotional intimacy that Giovanni offers alongside the physical
intimacy that they share.
First
off, let me begin by saying that I can understand why this book would be
considered dated by 21st-century standards. There’s an era of literature
(along with an era of cinema, television, and other stories) in which same-sex
relationships – particularly between men – were only “allowed” if they did not
end happily. There are some majorly-tortured themes in this book, and we’re
told pretty much from the beginning that we’re not going to get a fairytale
ending here. That said, the characters and insights in this book are
searingly-honest and the prose takes my breath away at multiple points. This is
an instance where I can see and acknowledge the elements that make me
uncomfortable while also recognizing the tremendous work it does within the
time in which it was written. It reminds me a little of The Boys in the Band in that way, even though the two works are
tremendously different.
There’s a
lot to grapple with in this book. Throughout, we see how David might be happy but continually fights
against the things that could make him so. Like so many other stories about
closeted people, he has a particular vision for his life, and if the person he
is doesn’t align with that vision, he has no real intention of allowing himself
to be that person, not entirely. His time with Giovanni is a dream, an outlier,
something that he can’t allow himself to perceive as true. He carries a lot of
internalized homophobia and effeminophobia that are of course in part shaped by
the society around him that rejects LGBTQ people and forces them into the
shadows, and he in turn directs both in judgment of other queer men, viewing
them as weak and unmanly even though they’re more honest in who they are than
he is.
I didn’t
realize until I started the book that David and all the other major characters
are white; the foreword includes the note that, at the time, Baldwin didn’t
know how to address both parts of his identity as a gay Black man within the
same story, and so his writings divided that existence in twain, writing about either straight Black men or queer white
men. But within that, there’s still something special in writing David as
white, because it’s done in such a way that a white author wouldn’t. In the
very first paragraph of the book, as David is describing his reflection, he
states, “My face is like a face you have seen many times. My ancestors
conquered a continent, pushing across death-laden plains, until they came to an
ocean which faced away from Europe into a darker past.” Whereas, by and large,
the average white author doesn’t even use the word “white” to describe their
white characters.
Which
brings me again to the writing. While I read a little of Baldwin’s non-fiction
in college, excerpts from essays, I just adore the stunning prose he writes
here. His command of language is extraordinary and heartfelt, and I love how
the style of the sentences and paragraphs shift according to David’s emotional
state. It’s so beautifully written,
and it makes me excited to read more of Baldwin’s work.
Warnings
Violence,
sexual content, drinking/smoking, language (including homophobic slurs,) and
strong thematic elements.
No comments:
Post a Comment