Beautiful Things
James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room and Marc Bolan.
I had read James Baldwin's Go Tell It On The Mountain back in highschool, and had not been particularly impressed with it, but now I am kicking myself for letting it keep me from reading Giovanni's Room sooner. Because Giovanni's Room might be the most beautiful book I have read in the last several years. I remember Go Tell It On The Mountain being well-composed and solidly written, but my impression of it had been like that of Joseph Conrad's writing--I could acknowledge its technical mastery, but not connect to it. Now I am wondering if Giovanni's Room is written in a different style, or if my immature little high school self just missed it in Mountain, because not only are the characters compelling, but the prose itself is simply so gorgeous that it alone makes the book worth reading again and again.
It is hard to stress how enrapturing this book is. It is so beautiful that I could not read it in one go--I would have to stop and catch my breath every few sections, and I wanted to share it with somebody and everybody. I was not the only one. When I came in to class to discuss this book, everybody else had had the same impression. We sat there with eyes blinking wide open and couldn't wait to talk about it. The French boy in my class, who had said he'd been becoming frustrated with his choice to study in America and been discouraged by our last few readings demanded to know what if Baldwin wrote any other books he could read, like, now. Another boy bit his lip and told the professor that he'd locked himself up in his room and cried for a whole day after finishing it. In his case, it was because the story was fairly personal, but still. It is a gorgeous work of writing.
And Giovanni, oh, Giovanni. I've missed characters like him--characters one could really love throgh the pages, and who could transcend them. The way that Baldwin writes the interaction between Giovanni and David (the narrator) is wonderful.
I will now quote you some samples of the book:
Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I don't know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming sword. Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it. Either, or: it takes strength to remember, it takes another kind of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do both. People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.
There were the usual paunchy, bespectacled gentlemen with avid, sometimes despairing eyes, the usual, knife-blade lean, tight-trousered boys. One could never be sure, as concerns these latter, whether they were after money or blood or love. They moved about the bar incessantly, cadging cigarettes and drinks, with something behind their eyes at once terribly vulnerable and terribly hard.
To move on to some dialogue, between an older queer and David, our narrator, on the subject of Giovanni:
'I was not suggesting that you jeopardize, even for a moment, that--he paused--immaculate manhood which is your pride and joy. I only suggested that you invite him because he will almost certainly refuse if I invite him.'
'But man,' I said, grinning, 'think of the confusion. He'll think that I'm the one who's lusting for his body. How do we get out of that?'
With Giovanni:
My sullenness delighted him. 'You're charming,' he said. 'Do you always speak like this?'
'No,' I said and looked down. 'Almost never.'
There was something in him of the coquette. 'I am flattered then,' he said with a sudden, disconcerting gravity, which contained nevertheless, the very faintest hint of mockery.
Carefully, Giovanni poured my drink. 'Vive l'amerique,' he said.
'Thank you,' I said, and lifted my glass, 'vive le vieux continent.'
We were silent for a moment.
'Do you come in here often?' asked Giovanni suddenly.
'No,' I said, 'not very often.'
'But you will come,' he teased, with a wonderful, mocking light on his face, 'more often now?'
I stammered: 'Why?'
'Ah!' cried Giovanni. 'Don't you know when you have made a friend?'
I knew I must look foolish and that my question was foolish too: 'So soon?'
'Why no,' he said, reasonably, and looked at his watch, 'we can wait another hour if you like. We can become friends then. Or we can wait until closing. We can become friends then. Or we can wait until tomorrow, only that means that you must come in tomorrow and perhaps you have something else to do.'
From the dark, crowded center of the bar someone called 'Garcon!' and he moved away from me, smiling. 'You can wait now. And tell me how sure you have become when I return.'
It rather reminds me of your style in that novella, alitearti. It is in any case the kind of simple but effective style I would wish for if I were writing dialogue.
Anyway, I was also going to talk of Marc Bolan here, but I feel now that this entry had better stand by itself. Giovanni deserves it.
But I would also like to add a little paean to how much I enjoy my Queer Narratives class. I love that it's so tiny--just the four of us and the professor. And I love how it's so informal as a consequence, and that it feels like such intimate gathering where we come to discuss things because we want to, not because we have to. And this is the first class where people actually appreciate my dress-up! I have said again and again how I tend to dress up for classes by theme, and no-one tends to notice. But here, they do! I come into class, and the professor tries to guess what I'm dressed as that day. Last time I tried to dress as Hella from Giovanni's Room (couldn't do Giovanni), and he said I looked like a Parisian Audrey Hepburn, ha. And when we did Death in Venice I wore a sailor dress, and he picked up on it and commented on it during our discussion. It makes me feel so appreciated.
I had read James Baldwin's Go Tell It On The Mountain back in highschool, and had not been particularly impressed with it, but now I am kicking myself for letting it keep me from reading Giovanni's Room sooner. Because Giovanni's Room might be the most beautiful book I have read in the last several years. I remember Go Tell It On The Mountain being well-composed and solidly written, but my impression of it had been like that of Joseph Conrad's writing--I could acknowledge its technical mastery, but not connect to it. Now I am wondering if Giovanni's Room is written in a different style, or if my immature little high school self just missed it in Mountain, because not only are the characters compelling, but the prose itself is simply so gorgeous that it alone makes the book worth reading again and again.
It is hard to stress how enrapturing this book is. It is so beautiful that I could not read it in one go--I would have to stop and catch my breath every few sections, and I wanted to share it with somebody and everybody. I was not the only one. When I came in to class to discuss this book, everybody else had had the same impression. We sat there with eyes blinking wide open and couldn't wait to talk about it. The French boy in my class, who had said he'd been becoming frustrated with his choice to study in America and been discouraged by our last few readings demanded to know what if Baldwin wrote any other books he could read, like, now. Another boy bit his lip and told the professor that he'd locked himself up in his room and cried for a whole day after finishing it. In his case, it was because the story was fairly personal, but still. It is a gorgeous work of writing.
And Giovanni, oh, Giovanni. I've missed characters like him--characters one could really love throgh the pages, and who could transcend them. The way that Baldwin writes the interaction between Giovanni and David (the narrator) is wonderful.
I will now quote you some samples of the book:
Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I don't know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming sword. Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it. Either, or: it takes strength to remember, it takes another kind of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do both. People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.
There were the usual paunchy, bespectacled gentlemen with avid, sometimes despairing eyes, the usual, knife-blade lean, tight-trousered boys. One could never be sure, as concerns these latter, whether they were after money or blood or love. They moved about the bar incessantly, cadging cigarettes and drinks, with something behind their eyes at once terribly vulnerable and terribly hard.
To move on to some dialogue, between an older queer and David, our narrator, on the subject of Giovanni:
'I was not suggesting that you jeopardize, even for a moment, that--he paused--immaculate manhood which is your pride and joy. I only suggested that you invite him because he will almost certainly refuse if I invite him.'
'But man,' I said, grinning, 'think of the confusion. He'll think that I'm the one who's lusting for his body. How do we get out of that?'
With Giovanni:
My sullenness delighted him. 'You're charming,' he said. 'Do you always speak like this?'
'No,' I said and looked down. 'Almost never.'
There was something in him of the coquette. 'I am flattered then,' he said with a sudden, disconcerting gravity, which contained nevertheless, the very faintest hint of mockery.
Carefully, Giovanni poured my drink. 'Vive l'amerique,' he said.
'Thank you,' I said, and lifted my glass, 'vive le vieux continent.'
We were silent for a moment.
'Do you come in here often?' asked Giovanni suddenly.
'No,' I said, 'not very often.'
'But you will come,' he teased, with a wonderful, mocking light on his face, 'more often now?'
I stammered: 'Why?'
'Ah!' cried Giovanni. 'Don't you know when you have made a friend?'
I knew I must look foolish and that my question was foolish too: 'So soon?'
'Why no,' he said, reasonably, and looked at his watch, 'we can wait another hour if you like. We can become friends then. Or we can wait until closing. We can become friends then. Or we can wait until tomorrow, only that means that you must come in tomorrow and perhaps you have something else to do.'
From the dark, crowded center of the bar someone called 'Garcon!' and he moved away from me, smiling. 'You can wait now. And tell me how sure you have become when I return.'
It rather reminds me of your style in that novella, alitearti. It is in any case the kind of simple but effective style I would wish for if I were writing dialogue.
Anyway, I was also going to talk of Marc Bolan here, but I feel now that this entry had better stand by itself. Giovanni deserves it.
But I would also like to add a little paean to how much I enjoy my Queer Narratives class. I love that it's so tiny--just the four of us and the professor. And I love how it's so informal as a consequence, and that it feels like such intimate gathering where we come to discuss things because we want to, not because we have to. And this is the first class where people actually appreciate my dress-up! I have said again and again how I tend to dress up for classes by theme, and no-one tends to notice. But here, they do! I come into class, and the professor tries to guess what I'm dressed as that day. Last time I tried to dress as Hella from Giovanni's Room (couldn't do Giovanni), and he said I looked like a Parisian Audrey Hepburn, ha. And when we did Death in Venice I wore a sailor dress, and he picked up on it and commented on it during our discussion. It makes me feel so appreciated.