Rustle in the Bush

Baldwin’s Development

Both of these novels speak to me as essentially aimed towards the possibility of life. And life admits of only one direction, forward though it can be thought only under the pretenses of the past. These biases, these psychological determinants stand in contrast to, really the entire world before the birth of Baldwin. A slow crawl out of scientific advancement, religious dogmatism, and rampant imperialism. These kind of psychological insights were rarely in literature, I think it’s what makes Shakespeare so powerful, and why great works like the Odyssey concern themselves with great human questions but do not reach the level of examination between woman/man and her environment that exists in the works of a Henry James, a Dostoyevsky, a Baldwin. The differences however, lie in the tone of the novels, which is examined through different locations and which speaks differently to the experience of life, past, and future. I’ll examine several key features to show this exists in the beginning of the novel.

Intention: Intention is a strange category, but I might call this thematic as well. Baldwin, at two different points in his life is faced with different kinds of options for his future. One, in GToM, is set up in the matter of a Bildungsroman, which may betray my answer since this isn’t necessarily revealed until the last line. But the novel does open with a young man, especially an unsure one who searches for spiritual guidance, acceptance, and individuality. I hesitate to give it this full title because we don’t get to track this growth into manhood but we do see a long progression building up over years, across an entire generation before him, leading him to the decision on the day in which the novel is set to reject his community’s spiritual paradigm; one which exists more on racial and spiritual lines than anything else. GR on the other hand, opens to a secular Europe, a drinking man staring out at Paris (Where we see no black people; present in Harlem immediately) and with a quote from the man who claimed literature would become the secular spiritual medium of the coming century Walt Whitman, against the Biblical quote which opens GToM . Here we transition from Bildungsroman to a full on psychological novel. Perhaps to do this Baldwin had to remove the subject of race and spirituality in order better examine the themes of this book so that he did not impart the parts of himself that were patently biased; sexual repression and self-knowledge rather than race and spirituality. 

Individuality: Each of these works, from the beginning, takes a different concern. John is a young man in GToM who is embedded firmly within the social fabric of his faith. The contradictions which drive the novel are those between the operation of the family as individuals in a home and in a church. GR however, is more in the vein of an existentialist novel and concerns itself with the most fundamental existential questions; those of personal identity, man’s consciousness of his determination, and an unconscious preoccupation which does not leave us with a general narratively ambiguous character, but rather to show the ambiguities of regular thought which prompt daily life. 

Above: Depciction of Giovanni’s Room, Paris in the 50s, Black Pentecostals, 40s Harlem

Freedom: This is truly the most existential question. However freedom here is constructed in relation to the past. John first in the novel reflects on the way he had grown up, and in the grip of an oppressive father who has turned the principle of life itself into the temptation of sin has used the past as a weapon to weaponize against his son. The past doesn’t simply exist but is inherited and brought to the future, where John can feel its oppressive atmosphere; at least with his fidelity to the Father, again reflecting familial and spiritual codes rather than David’s personal and psychological ones. The past and the language of the Bible as a young preacher gives John a way to be free. John repudiates the god of his Father god but says he is coming to him, what could this mean? Only that the book itself weaponizes religious language as a personal method of expression, allowing John to determine his future without presenting he’s actually secure, or that he’s not running from his past.

This is David’s central problem in GR, where David, overly self-conscious about every act he takes, continues to root himself in concerns of the past without regard to their future. Some of this is his dishonesty toward himself about the romantic bounds of his relationship with Giovanni. This is why the book starts in medias res with David not able to ever really leave Giovanni’s room; it continues to haunt him. This haunting is the most emotionally exhausting part of the novel, its truly devastating, and the wish for more desperation from David is enough to make one stomach turn under the pretense of his resentment, his rampant repression, and the apparent indifference from the past which motivates his psychologically stunted reaction to his present life (Let alone the entire novel he continues to ignore the idea of thinking of the future). He even calls this attitude of his ‘pretentious masturbation’ and the scenes in which he makes love (I would use a four letter word, many of these instances involve no hint of life) he often describes the instrumental use of his boy’s body. This I find is another instance of this past infatuation; an interior attention of what Nietzsche called the attitude of the historical man, Freud comes along to show how these are sublimated relations in our personal psychology as well into pathological attitudes. David also stays firmly attached to the father, abusing his care as well.

Structure: Another major element is the basic beginning and ending. Both stories open in media res, and regress to a past middle section where we learn of the events leading up to the beginning. John begins with the presence of the church immediately established, his story will be how to transcend this single space, this single code of language. David however, David starts with nothing, he is alone adrift, American in his false self-surety. I would like to note that the beginning paragraph is more despicable and rich once I’ve gone back to read him describing the week since the leaving of his fiancée.

I could say so much more thank you for introducing me to this work. I see myself returning and rereading. I have lots to say but will end saying that from its beginning you get the impression GToM is a Bildungsroman-esque kind of book, but that Giovanni’s Room is firmly placed with the Tragic (By pressuring the execution) story in a psychological novel.