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Room by Emma Donoghue 1/4/2011 1:07:44 AM
I was looking forward to reading Room, by Emma Donoghue, an Irish writer based in Canada. First, it was shortlisted for the Booker prize this year and there has been a lot of hype around the book. Then, it has strong similarities with the story of Elisabeth Fritzl, an Austrian woman who was imprisoned and raped by her father for twenty-four years, bearing him seven children, of which three were also imprisoned until their rescue. There are other similar cases, such as those of Jaycee Lee Dugard in California and of Natascha Kampusch and Sabine Dardenne. Room is the story of a young woman, “Ma”, who was kidnapped by a man (“Old Nick”) and imprisoned by him for seven years. She gave birth to a child (“Jack”) during her time in the “room”. The story is told by five-year old Jack. It starts with his fifth birthday, followed by a few days in the room, then their escape, and their first few weeks of freedom.
I may as well say it right away, I disliked the book. Like many readers, I read it in one sitting, but my reason for doing so is not that I was engrossed in it, but it was that I knew that if I stopped, I would never be able to get back to reading it. I am not particularly fond of books narrated by very young children, as they become quickly tedious. How long can you stand baby talk? A whole book of it? Room epitomises just this. A few years back, I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Foer and I disliked it for similar reasons. An exception was Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, told by an autistic child. Haddon’s has beautifully captured the speech of the child and has made his story captivating. Donoghue has made her story extremely boring. The first third of the book is spent inside the room. What can happen in a room? Not very much, and this is exactly what happens in the book. We get to know Jack and Ma and their routine, which is terribly boring. Old Nick is almost nonexistent. After the escape, we spend the next third of the book in a clinic (in another room…). Jack discovers the world, which is all fine, except we get bored pretty quickly. As for the last third of the book, where Jack is taken to a few places, such as his grandma’s house, by that stage I needed something to happen, or simply to hear someone speak normally. I realise the book is about character development and not an adventure story, but reading every single detail of the smallest thing Jack does in a day is not pleasant. Donoghue may have captured the right voice for Jack, I’m not a specialist of child language development so I won’t judge too quickly, but I find surprising that a child who is precocious in many ways (He knows many complex words for example and can talk about things he has never experienced first-hand.), speaks to a mother with a normal speech, and spends hours in front of the television, can only speak like a baby. In any case, even if it is right, this is the last thing I want to read for a few hundred pages. There are also holes in the plot. The escape for a start does not sound plausible. As for the way Jack and Ma reenter the world, I find that Donoghue has avoided the difficulties they are bound to face. Everything seems a little too easy and too fast (If you follow the book closely, Jack is almost behaving normally after two weeks). Issues of separation, anxiety, fears, or even excitement, are barely addressed. As for the relationship with the rest of Ma’s family, it didn’t feel real to me. In fact, I felt very little. Period. In summary, would I recommend this book? Absolutely not. I feel part of its success is due to the hype around recent abduction cases and the horror experienced by the prisoners. I may be wrong, and I know many people feel otherwise, but for me, Room is one of the worst books I have read in a long time.
