A Guide to Megalomania

Room by Emma Donoghue

Yes snarkies, a book review. In my day television was called books and while this isn't the book my father read to me or the book I will read to my sick grandson, 'Room' by Emma Donoghue was thought provoking enough for me to blog about.

Please note, while I will try and keep spoilers to a minimum, if you hit 'Read More' a little bit of the story might be given away - though not enough to stop you enjoying the novel. I promise.
 

Today I'm five. I was four last night going to sleep in Wardrobe, but when I wake up in Bed in the dark I'm changed to five, abracadabra. Before that I was three, then two, then one, then zero. "Was I minus numbers?"

And so we are introduced to Jack, the protagonist and narrator of Donoghue's novel. Jack, as you may have figured out, is five. Within the first chapter it is extremely apparent that Jack's world is a little different. Jack's room is in fact Room, the only location Jack has ever known, seen, explored or comprehended. The bed is Bed, another location and in some ways a character in the novel due to the limits of Jack's world.  Jack is curious, energetic, phrenetic and full of questions about the world - keeping in mind the world for Jack is a 12 foot x 12 foot room. He lives alone with his mother, Ma and when watching TV thinks he is watching scenes from other planets, events that are happening so far away from his world that our reality is inconceivable to him.

Jack's mother was kidnapped at nineteen years old while walking home from college. She was locked in a room, secured and solitary to live out her life as a sexual slave by her kidnapper and Jack is an obvious result of his taking advantage of her.

While in some ways, Room is a story about a man who is holding a female victim as a sex slave, it is more about the love between a mother and her child and how she would do anything for him. Through Jack's voice we understand what he can't - that his life isn't normal and the world is a much bigger place than he can comprehend. If this story were told by any other character, including Jack's mother it would be a very different novel and nowhere near as compelling. Jack's voice acts in some ways cushioning the reader between the horrific existence they live and us as spectators in their lives. We know what's happening, but it is clear Jack does not have the same understanding and it is that innocence which makes the story unique and poignant.

Quite often in our day to day lives, we survey the horror of the world around us shake our heads in disbelief at what is happening and it is easy to look at Room as a pure work of fiction. Sadly, events like the Josef Fritzl case in Austria show just how realistic the situation is and Room, I believe, gives us an insight into the psyche of the victims.

Room is easily one of the best books I have read in the last twelve months. The story is both scary and sad but full of hope, which I think reflects the lives of people who live through and survive what Ma, Fritzl's daughter and many other women live through.

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