This book gave me goosebumps. I might have experienced this book a bit differently because I was completely in the dark about what to expect outside of this being a fairly short read and that it's considered a classic. My logic was that after finishing the absolute monolith of Anna Karenina yesterday I wanted to broach something that was on the shorter side. I think that maybe the blindness is part of what knocked my socks off so to speak.
The writing is clear, beautiful, merciless, focused...and more than a little melodramatic. I feel that the characters are best seen as a players in a play, coming from David's perspective we don't get particularly 3-D renditions of their personalities. This didn't really bother me because I felt that the relationships were more important than the people actually in the relationships, if that makes sense? Suffering is the name of the game in this book particularly thinking back to that integral moment when David returns to the room to collect his belongings, and Giovanni is sitting naked on the edge of the bed, willing with every fibre of his being for David to change his mind. He doesn't, of course.
We hear also how much David suffers; from the beginning we know he suffers, his backstory and complex relationship with his sexuality, his father and deceased mother. The events of their love affair during that Paris Summer and Giovanni's subsequent actions are told in flashback, interspersed through the forward action of the novel. Once Hella - David's fiancé- returns to him, more or less causing David to return to being closeted, the suffering only intensifying as after being spurred Giovanni's life deteriorates, eventually leading to the murder of Giovanni's former employer. WAS THE GUILIOTTINE NECESSARY?
So yeah, this is the embodiment of a tragedy. David while flat, is an interesting character to have the POV of. His spiral of self-deception has multiple casualties ranging from Giovanni who is discarded out of fear, Hella who is signed up for a marriage not necessarily made wholeheartedly even Sue whom David sleeps with to affirm his heterosexuality. I totally felt like the depths of emotion that needed to be expressed were realized on the paper.
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