Giovanni's Room
by James Baldwin
Current Events & Pop Culture
Available to teachers only as part of the Teaching Giovanni's Room Teacher Pass
Teaching Giovanni's Room Teacher Pass includes:
- Assignments & Activities
- Reading Quizzes
- Current Events & Pop Culture articles
- Discussion & Essay Questions
- Challenges & Opportunities
- Related Readings in Literature & History
Sample of Current Events & Pop Culture
A Great Novelist on a Great Novel
Colm Toibin is another writer who, like Baldwin, deals with issues of sexuality in his work. This excellent article for the New Yorker's "Page-turner" blog is from the introduction to a new edition of Giovanni's Room. It's a great overview of the style and major themes of the novel, along with the echoes of other writers who influenced Baldwin.
In the last pages of the book, the style reverts to the earlier simplicity. Sentences of stark non-feeling take on a greater power now, after the heightened, complex colors that Baldwin has used in both the passages of description and the passages of reflection and analysis. The possibility of a rich, ambiguous, fervid response to love or the chance of love is over. Now the diction needs clear statements, full stops: ''She began to cry. I held her in my arms. I felt nothing at all.'' (Source)