Reading group: Giovanni's Room

This book was the departing suggestion of Mark, who has been a member of the group since its inception twenty-two years ago but has now left to move abroad. In the event he left earlier than he had anticipated, so wasn't present at the discussion, but the email he sent implied that he hadn't liked the book too much, or at least that he had found it very gloomy.

The rest of us did find the book bleak, but our reactions were not entirely negative. Published in 1956 and set in late forties/early fifties Paris, it is the first person narration of David, a young white American. The book opens as he stands at the window looking out into the dark and blaming himself for being 'too various to be trusted', which has led to the situation in which his fiancee, Hella, is on her way back to America, the relationship over, and 'Giovanni ... about to perish, sometime between this night and this morning, on the guillotine'.

His thoughts then take us back through the events that led to this situation. They begin with an innocent childhood sexual encounter with another boy, over which David, stifled by the values of a macho heterosexual father, is later crippled with shame. What follows is the story of David's denial of his homosexuality, and the tragedy for those with whom he becomes involved. In Paris he asks Hella to marry him, yet, while vowing heterosexuality, in return for drinks and money he is providing company for an older homosexual, Jacques, in his visits to homosexual night clubs. It is here, while Hella is in Spain deciding whether or not to accept his offer of marriage, he meets Giovanni, a handsome young Italian barman; he is immediately attracted, and the two very quickly become involved. Short of money and kicked out of his lodgings, David goes to stay in Giovanni's room which is symbolically stifling - small and dark with the window whited out to keep out the stares of passers by, the bed overlooked by the Victorian heterosexual couple on the wallpaper, one wall half demolished by Giovanni's unfinished/unsuccessful attempts at reconstruction. Due to the jealousy of the proprietor, Guillaume, Giovanni is fired from the bar. He is devastated and it becomes clear that he is entirely emotionally dependent on David, who privately intends to leave him, as Hella is due back from America. This is precisely what David does, and tragedy ensues.

The main thing that struck us all was the searing self-disgust running through this book. David is disgusted by his own homosexuality, and both he and Giovanni are repelled by the 'disgusting old fairies', Jacques and Guillaume, to whom they are yet in thrall, depending on them as they do for money. They are horrified at the notion that one day they will turn into those older men, seeking the attentions of younger men who will view them with the same distaste and cynicism, and by the end of the book David is resigned to that fate. It was clear to us that though a book conveying these sentiments would now be considered politically incorrect, it is a searingly truthful depiction of how it must have been in an age when homosexuality was so underground, so unacceptable to mainstream society, and indeed against the law. David's disgust however extends to the transsexuals that frequent the bar, whom he clearly sees as 'other': '[the] grotesqueness made me uneasy; perhaps in the same way that the sight of monkeys eating their own excrement turns some people's stomachs.' This did shock some of us, and perhaps it was this, along with David's self-confessed inability ultimately to love either Hella or Giovanni, that made Ann say she didn't actually like David, finding him self-centred, and others agreed. However, new member Margaret (Mark's replacement) strongly said she totally felt for David all the way, and indeed she loved the book.

The book does feel extremely autobiographical, yet takes an objective view of David's failings, which is perhaps unusual (and maybe creates cognitive dissonance), but is searingly honest. One thing I noted was that, in spite of his inability to love or truly give himself to others, David is however very good - perhaps almost too novelistically good - at understanding the thought processes and emotions of others. I was in great admiration of this, though wondered how psychologically realistic it was, and as John and others said, it does give rise to a great deal of introspection which forms the chief substance of the book, and which some found wearing. John said he found the book suddenly perked up in the scene in which David gives up the keys to the landlady of the house he and Hella rented together and which he is now leaving: there is dialogue and true dramatic action.

Some people wondered at a black author, James Baldwin, making his protagonist white. Ann and I had both read that Baldwin said that he did not want to confuse the issue of homosexuality with race. Someone said they didn't think it mattered, since the whole stress was on homosexuality. However, Ann pointed out that in the fifties someone like Giovanni would have been considered black, and it is his exoticism for the homosexual men around him on which his tragedy pivots.

All agreed that the depiction of the fifties Paris underworld was wonderfully vivid, yet the overall effect was summed up in the one written word of Doug (who had been unable to attend): bleak.

Our archive discussions can be found here and a list of the books we have discussed, with links to the discussions, here