Giovanni's Room
by James Baldwin · first published 1956
3mentions
1recommended by
3HN commenters
2019–2023first – last mentioned
33% recommend67% neutral
Considered an 'audacious' second novel, GIOVANNI'S ROOM is set in the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence. This now-classic story of a fated love triangle explores, with uncompromising clarity, the conflicts between desire, conventional morality and sexual identity.
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…stories spanning centuries from the near past to the near future. Beautifully written. Read when I was down with COVID earlier this year and it invaded my dreams (in a good way). Short and easy read. Giovanni's Room- story of an American expat in Paris caught between his love for a man and his duty to his girlfriend. This is the first James Baldwin book I have read but will definitely check out more of his work in…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2023 and recommend for 2024” ↗| that's an insane dynamic to create in What do you think Twitter would have looked like in 1956 when James Baldwin published Giovanni's Room? Is the problem "cancel culture" (a nebulous term which means little) or simply the result of giving everyone on earth a place to complain?
on “Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'” ↗“There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.” —James Baldwin, "Giovanni's Room"