Donna’s review of Giovanni's Room > Likes and Comments
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Donna, I also enjoyed this one. But I'd just read Gore Vidal's "City and the Pillar" (from the 1940s) before I read "Giovanni's Room. Both are of the same genre.. Baldwin's story was better, the setting more interesting, and "Giovanni's Room" is the better novel. But Vidal either borrowed or created a number of terms/characters which still, today, are used in derogatory ways in some communities and Baldwin too used a few of these terms/characters. But with books like "A Little Life" we're moving away from certain stereotypes. That said, Vidal was already a successful writer when he published "Pillar" and had little to risk. On the other hand, Baldwin had a career to lose with this audacious novel, so one can only admire Baldwin for the huge risk he took with this book.
He's my favorite too :) Love the both of them!
5 Star read for me too Donna. Loved it!
I don't remember much about my reading experience, but I loved it and do remember the writing was tight and good :)
Baldwin was living and chronicling intersectionality so far ahead of his times that a generation later, we are still catching up. He famously wrote, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”
Jimmy is still showing us how to think, live, and love in an often hostile world.
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Greg
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Dec 09, 2016 07:06AM
Donna, I also enjoyed this one. But I'd just read Gore Vidal's "City and the Pillar" (from the 1940s) before I read "Giovanni's Room. Both are of the same genre.. Baldwin's story was better, the setting more interesting, and "Giovanni's Room" is the better novel. But Vidal either borrowed or created a number of terms/characters which still, today, are used in derogatory ways in some communities and Baldwin too used a few of these terms/characters. But with books like "A Little Life" we're moving away from certain stereotypes. That said, Vidal was already a successful writer when he published "Pillar" and had little to risk. On the other hand, Baldwin had a career to lose with this audacious novel, so one can only admire Baldwin for the huge risk he took with this book.
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He's my favorite too :) Love the both of them!
5 Star read for me too Donna. Loved it!
I don't remember much about my reading experience, but I loved it and do remember the writing was tight and good :)
Baldwin was living and chronicling intersectionality so far ahead of his times that a generation later, we are still catching up. He famously wrote, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”Jimmy is still showing us how to think, live, and love in an often hostile world.
