more accurately seen as bisexual, namely David and Giovanni. As Maiken Solli claims, though most people read the characters as gay/homosexual, ". . . a bisexual perspective could be just as valuable and enlightening in understanding the book, as well as exposing the bisexual experience." Though the novel is considered a homosexual and bisexual novel, Baldwin has on occasion stated that it was "not so much about homosexuality, it is what happens if you are so afraid that you finally cannot love anybody". The novel's protagonist, David, seems incapable of deciding between Hella and Giovanni and expresses both hatred and love for the two, though he often questions if his feelings are authentic or superficial. Inspiration An argument can be made that David resembles Baldwin in Paris as he left America after growing up under its racism. David, though not a victim of racism like Baldwin himself, is an American who escapes to Paris. However, when asked if the book was autobiographical in an interview in 1980, Baldwin explains he was influenced by his observations in Paris, but the novel wasn't necessarily shaped by his own experiences: "No, it is more of a study of how it might have been or how I feel it might have been. I mean, for example, some of the people I have met. We all met in a bar, there was a blond French guy sitting at a table, he bought us drinks. And, two or three days later, I saw his face in the headlines of a Paris paper. He had been arrested and was later guillotined. That stuck in my mind." Literary significance and criticism Even though Baldwin states that "the sexual question and the racial question have always been entwined", in Giovanni's Room, all of the characters are white. This was a surprise for his readers, since Baldwin was primarily known by his novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, which puts emphasis on the African-American experience. Highlighting the impossibility of tackling two major issues at once in America, Baldwin stated:I certainly could not possibly have—not at that point in my life—handled the other great weight, the ‘Negro problem.’ The sexual-moral light was a hard thing to deal with. I could not handle both propositions in the same book. There was no room for it.Nathan A. Scott Jr., for example, stated that Go Tell It on the Mountain showed Baldwin's "passionate