Book Review: Room

Book #114 of 2010

“I don’t know why hurting means getting better.” — Emma Donoghue, Room

SPOILER ALERT — This book just needed to be discussed, I felt.

“He’s my favourite because he’s not the same.”

I really enjoyed it. Donoghue got into the head of a five year old spectacularly well, and I particularly enjoyed her use of grammar in that regard. It’s interesting, because of course he was a verbally accelerated child, but there were certain things he’d still say wrong. Sometimes I thought he was a bit too verbose, actually, but mostly she was spot on.

“Also when I tell her what I’m thinking and she tells me what she’s thinking, our each ideas jumping into the other’s head, like coulouring blue crayon on top of yellow that makes green.”

I felt like she covered most of her bases by the end, and I thought the mother’s suicide attempt and an interview she gave (the only one she consented to) were both very realistic, especially the frenzy of her saying the money would be for “his college education” — not hers, surprisingly, which would be more appropriate (given that she’s in her early twenties, not in the sense that that’s not what a mother would do). I did feel like there were parts were there was a slight disconnect, a falling-just-short, but mostly I thought it was great, and the instances were few. 

There was a significant amount of hype around the book, but I largely ignored it, if I’m honest. It was easier to do than it was for Freedom, for instance. With Room, all I knew was that it was on the Man Booker shortlist, but although I know they occasionally pick great books, they frequently pick shit ones, too. So I didn’t treat that as the Bible, or anything. The reason I personally picked the book up had nothing to do with hype and everything to do with what the book was about. After the recent discoveries of women who have been locked up for years and habitually abused, raped and inseminated, some by their fathers, I thought it was a brave thing to take on. I couldn’t say that the book is one of my favourites ever, but it was one of my more interesting reads of ‘10, and I read a bunch of wonderful books last year, so that says something, I think.

Probably my favourite thing about it was how the mother didn’t tell her child that “the outside world” was real— things that are TV and things that are real life. I thought it was heartbreaking, very effective, and very true to what an imaginative mind would tackle an incredibly difficult situation like that.

“Before I didn’t even know to be mad that we can’t open Door, my head was too small to have Outside in it. When I was a little kid I thought like a little kid, but now I’m five I know everything.”

The days were “Ma was Gone”, and you see from the kid’s perspective his mother refusing to get out of bed, or to acknowledge him, a state in which she collapses into herself; that was great to see, because it felt so realistic. There was another point where their captor cut the power (ultimately leading to their escape) and the lead up was effective. I thought those were powerful. Less favourite parts were: I didn’t find it realistic that he’d never seen the kid. She asked her son to go into the wardrobe when their captor came into to have sex with her, which I found believable; but I felt like that was a bit not fully expressed.

“We’re like people in a book, and he won’t let anybody else read it.”

When they’re finally “outside”, the kid meets his grandmother and grandfather. The grandfather is grateful to have his daughter back, but is unable to accept the kid as his grandson because all he sees is a result of the torture his daughter went through. But I was unsure how much I believed the grandmother’s reaction. She accepted him, but was incredibly impatient with him. I mean, the grandfather’s reaction was more believable. Would you really “tear your hair out” so often at such menial things? I mean, I know parents who have kids who have lived perfectly normal lives and are similarily disruptive that are more easygoing with the kid. 

“Lots of the world seems to be a repeat.”

Overall it was a book I enjoyed. At times I felt like a little spark was missing, but it was well written and imagined, and a very effective method of conveying one woman’s ‘real’ life horror.