Giovanni’s Room Blog 2

by, Matt Berrian     Within most narratives based upon the nineteenth century novel structure, the “hero” or protagonist will almost certainly encounter a vision that embodies their most horrible nightmares. The sort of nightmarish specter that they encounter depends upon the generic conventions that the text is operating within — it may be a magical

Giovanni’s Room Blog 4

Schroedinger’s Giovanni  In his article ‘A rhetoric of reading’, James Seitz makes the claim that “a good piece of writing must anticipate its reading” (143). To elaborate on this, he analyzes an excerpt from ‘A most Parisian incident’ (1890) which effectively dupes the reader into believing that two romantic partners are having illicit affairs with

Giovanni’s Room Blog 3

I can’t stop thinking about The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. While thinking of material to mine for this blog post, I became fixated on the idea that Hemingway’s novel could be a codex of sorts with the power to decrypt the many themes, contradictions, and whispered questions that live within James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s

Giovanni’s Room Blog 1

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.