post: giovanni's room

Author: moiSentineL

src/blog/Giovanni's Room.md

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+---
+aliases: 
+tags:
+  - post
+  - books
+  - life
+added: 2025-06-29
+link: https://nibirsan.org/blog/p/giovannis-room
+excerpt: thoughts after reading Giovanni's Room
+date: 2025-06-29T18:42:47+05:30
+status: done
+content-type: blog
+---
+*Giovanni's Room* by James Baldwin was beautifully tragic. And it hit like a freight train. This book had me looking at love, humans and myself in a completely different light. I immediately felt the urge to grab my loved ones and say: "Oh I am so very sorry. Oh I love you so very much!"
+
+I wouldn't dare classify this as *only* a romance novella; it's certainly more than that. It's about relationships, identity, sexuality, poverty, and the duplicit nature of humans. It's a tragedy, beyond tragedy itself.
+
+I was, and still am, overwhelmed with feelings of longing, of sadness, of understanding and of **love**. I felt as if everything that happened in this book, was happening to *me*.
+
+It's equally heartbreaking and sensual. I think it is a very, very important read for anyone. Imagine *Anxious People*, *The Fall* and *The Sense of an Ending* had a threesome and conceived a child with all of their qualities, but gay.
+
+This post is a bit rambly and sporadic, because I cannot seem to string it all together. The feelings are really hard to put into words. But anyhow, here are my thoughts and inner reflections.
+
+There is no literary discussion on this post, but I assure you that the language flows like sweet honey. It is very pretty. I read the print version along with the audiobook (read by Matt Bomer).
+
+---
+
+It's terribly difficult to be a man who hides, who wants to remain *clean*, pristine, untouched, and unloved. He pushes everyone away. He is afraid. Afraid of everyone and afraid of himself. 
+
+Who would want to be that man? But you *are*. We **all** are.
+
+>"I have something to say to her- to her?- but of course it will never be said. I feel that I want to be forgiven, I want *her* to forgive me. But I do not know how to state my crime. My crime, in some odd way, is in being a man and she knows all about this already. It is terrible how naked she makes me feel, like a half grown boy, naked before his mother."
+
+We are afraid of being honest, afraid of appearing without a mask in this costume party of a world. Fear does a lot of bad things to people, and to love.
+
+This book made me understand how **deep** love is. How beautiful and yet, how cruel. It pushes you off a cliff and catches you at the same time. It is rapturous, treacherous, and oh how it makes you *thrive*. How it makes you **live**!
+
+>"Look, *look* what you have done to me. Do you think you could have done this if I did not love you? Is *this* what you should do to love?"
+
+Sure, love is complicated. **But I'd much rather be in love than not**. It may seem very naïve- since I am only over 18, at the time of writing this- but love makes you whole. It anchors you.
+
+It is a [Pascal's Wager](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/). Who wouldn't want to be in love?
+
+---
+
+This book will make you terribly sorry for *everything*, but you won't know why.
+You may even cry, and you won't know why.
+
+But linger onto that feeling of utter destruction for a while. Dwell on it, reflect on it, let it intoxicate you. *Feel it*.
+
+And then, maybe, just maybe, we'll all understand some divine truth, about ourselves and about everything.
+
+**4.5/5**