the fate of Giovanni

I am surprised so far by Giovanni’s Room and the somewhat odd contextual format. It is a jumble of David’s memories of life in New York and in Paris, yet we learn before even meeting Giovanni that he is dead. This is always a shocking turn of events in a narrative to me because if we as the reader are not to be kept in suspense as to what happens to a seemingly main character we must obviously need to be concentrating on other things. Just as in Romeo and Juliet where we learn the fate of our “star-crossed lovers” before the play begins to happen we clearly then need to concentrate on how they characters reach their fate, which is what I think we as readers need to do with Giovanni. There is a technique and even a sort of literary angle to revealing so much about a character before we get to know them. Does this technique keep us from becoming attached to such a character or does it make us want to find an attachment to him or her even more? Is it a curiosity aspect that makes us examine more closely what the “dead” character says and does more than characters where we do not know their fate beforehand? Does it make us pay attention to who the character really is even more if we know a crucial aspect before getting to know them? I have always wondered about this approach to introducing a character and want to see how exactly my view of Giovanni will be different.