Reading for Mimesis and Theme
By Matthew Berrian Posted by Scott MacLean
Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin, is a book that never left my mind. The last time I read this book was in 2015, a time in my life where I existed as a wholly different person than who I see myself as today. Ironically, despite the years between these two different versions of myself, I find myself looking within this text for the same thing once more — validation in my identity. Back then, I wanted to feel reassured that the men who loved each other in this book could become my blueprint for creating a better image of myself. But now, I need something else. What’s at stake for me as a reader on my second trip to Giovanni’s Room is to prove to myself that I actually have changed since my first read-through — to compare my evaluations of the text now to what I felt as a reader when I was 15. Essentially, my 15 year old self didn’t get this book. I didn’t understand what Baldwin’s message was, or why he created such flawed characters to represent a group of violently marginalized people. What I’m hoping for now, on my current reading, is to finally answer the many questions within this narrative that utterly vexed me as a high schooler. The main issue at stake for me in this re-reading is whether or not I can prove my growth as a reader by answering the mysteries of Baldwin’s text.
The premise of Giovanni’s Room is a question that looms over its narrator’s head like an anvil hanging from a string — How can you survive when love unearths a version of yourself that you cannot live with?
In many ways, Giovanni’s Room is a story of survival, but a brutal and damning survival at that. The protagonist and narrator is David, an American expatriate residing in Southern France, who is recounting his past summer’s love affair with the soon-to-be-executed Giovanni in Paris. Set in the 1950s, David’s brief and passionate romance with Giovanni is marred by David’s intense inability to reconcile his sexuality with the values of his conservative American culture, even while across the seas from his home country. David and Giovanni spend the summer living together in Giovanni’s small flat and enjoying the Parisian nightlife with each other and a small group of queer friends. Giovanni attempts to domesticize his flat, cleaning it up and laying out a vision where he and David could settle down together in this refurbished little room remade with love. However, David does not tell Giovanni that his fiance — a woman named Hella — is due to return to Paris, and when she does, David intends to abandon Giovanni for the safety of Hella. When he eventually does reunite with Hella, Giovanni is sent into a spiral of despair and rage. David learns one day that Giovanni was arrested for killing one of their mutual acquaintances, and is going to be executed for his crime. Hella and David relocate from Paris to a small villa in Southern France, but even their time together is cut short when Hella catches David sneaking around with a handsome sailor. Hella leaves, and David is left alone.
In each case, David’s commitment to his lovers is poisoned by his inability to face the truth of his sexual identity, and his determination to live within a lie. But the lie is never strong enough to sustain the relationship, and it only forces David away from the people who care about him. David believes that hiding within his lie will protect him from the horrific reality that is queerness, but it is actually the stubborn persistence of this lie that turns him into a monster and alienates him from everyone he knows. For this reason, I believe that the controlling idea of Giovanni’s Room is that living a lie will destroy you and everyone that you become close with. The counter to this statement is essentially what David is ruled by — the truth is unbearable and dangerous, so it is better to survive through a lie no matter what the cost.
“People can’t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.”
James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room
All You Read is Love 