乔凡尼的房间 (1956)

Giovanni's Room is a 1956 novel by James Baldwin. The book concerns the events in the life of an American man living in Paris and his feelings and frustrations with his relationships with other men, particularly an Italian bartender named Giovanni whom he meets at a Parisian gay bar. While he deals with his difficulties with men, he is engaged to an American woman who is travelling in Spain.

Baldwin's novel was considered controversial upon its release in 1956 and has since prompted discussions of many issues, including representations of homosexuality, bisexuality, and struggles with internalized homophobia. The novel also raises questions of social alienation, identity, masculinity, and manhood.

Plot

David, a young American man whose girlfriend has gone off to Spain to contemplate marriage, is left alone in Paris and begins an affair with an Italian man, Giovanni. The entire story is narrated by David during "the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life," when Giovanni will be executed for committing murder. Baldwin tackles social isolation, gender and sexual identity crisis, as well as conflicts of masculinity within this story of a young man navigating the public sphere in a society that rejects a core aspect of his sexuality.

Part one

David, in Southern France, is about to board a train back to Paris. His girlfriend Hella, to whom he had proposed before she went to Spain, has returned to the United States. As for Giovanni, he is about to be guillotined.

David remembers his first experience with a boy, Joey, who lived in Brooklyn. The two bonded and eventually had a sexual encounter during a sleepover. The two boys began kissing and having sex. The next day, David left, and a little later he took to bullying Joey in order to feel like a real man.

David now lives with his father, who is prone to drinking, and his aunt, Ellen. The latter upbraids the father for not being a good example to his son. David's father says that all he wants is for David to become a real man. Later, David begins drinking, too, and drinks and drives once, ending up in an accident. Back home, the two men talk, and David convinces his father to let him skip college and get a job instead. He then decides to move to France to find himself.

After a year in Paris, penniless, he calls Jacques, an older gay male acquaintance, to meet him for supper so he can ask for money. (In a prolepsis, Jacques and David meet again and discuss Giovanni's fall.) The two men go to Guillaume's gay bar. They meet Giovanni, the new bartender, at whom Jacques tries to make a pass until he gets talking with Guillaume. Meanwhile, David and Giovanni become friends. Later, they all go to a restaurant in Les Halles for breakfast. Jacques enjoins David not to be ashamed to feel love; they eat oysters and drink white wine. Giovanni recounts how he met Guillaume in a cinema; how the two men had dinner together because Giovanni wanted a free meal. He also explains that Guillaume is prone to making trouble. Later, the two men go back to Giovanni's room and they have sex.

Flashing forward again to the day of Giovanni's execution, David is in his house in the South of France. The caretaker comes round for the inventory, as he is moving out the next day. She encourages him to get married, have children, and pray.

Part two

David moves into Giovanni's small room. They broach the subject of Hella, about whom Giovanni is not worried, but who reveals the Italian's misogynistic prejudices about women and the need for men to dominate them. David then briefly describes Giovanni's room, which is always in the dark because, even though there are no curtains, Giovanni has painted over the windows with a white cleaning polish in order to create privacy. David goes on to read a letter from his father, asking him to go back to America, but he does not want to do that. The young man walks into a sailor; David believes the sailor is a gay man (who can tell that David desires him), though it is unclear whether this is true or if the sailor is just staring back at David.

A subsequent letter from Hella announces that she is returning in a few days, and David realizes he has to part with Giovanni soon. Setting off to prove to himself that he is not gay, David searches for a woman with whom he can have sex. He meets a slight acquaintance, Sue, in a bar and they go back to her place and have sex; he does not want to see her again and has only slept with her to feel better about himself. When he returns to the room, David finds a hysterical Giovanni, who has been fired from Guillaume's bar and falsely accused of stealing from the till.

Hella returns, and David leaves Giovanni's room without telling him for three days. He writes to his father asking for money for his marriage. The couple then runs into Jacques and Giovanni in a bookshop, which makes Hella uncomfortable because she does not like Jacques's mannerisms. After walking Hella back to her hotel room, David goes to Giovanni's room to talk; the Italian man is distressed. David thinks that they cannot have a life together and feels that he would be sacrificing his manhood if he stays with Giovanni. He leaves but runs into Giovanni several times and is upset by the "fairy" mannerisms that he is developing and his new relationship with Jacques, who is an older and richer man. Sometime later, David finds out that Giovanni is no longer with Jacques and that he might be able to get a job at Guillaume's bar again.