ROOM by Emma Donaghue

ROOM by Emma Donoghue

Publisher:  Picador

Year:  2010

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?”

That’s how the novel ROOM by Emma Donoghue begins.  A child sleeps in a Wardrobe (capital “W”), then somehow wakes up in Bed (capital “B”) and in the magical way of noticing that small children have, this child feels the wondrous transformation that turning five can bring in a manner that most children that age don’t experience it—as a catalogue of steps; not an explosion of joy with the anticipation of presents, cake and a party.  But though these are clearly the ruminations of a small child, there’s such a big difference in the thoughts this particular child has about the world.  This fact is evident even in these first few sentences of Donoghue’s novel.  The capital letters at the beginning of words signify unwarranted status to inanimate and commonplace things.  The numerical musings of a little child who can go to sleep in a wardrobe, and then wake up in a bed as though that is a common occurrence, hint at a smart kid, who at the age of five knows what ‘minus’ numbers are, and can apply that concept to his own existence.  With just those four sentences at the start of Room, you immediately sense that an extraordinary thing is taking place in this child’s life and within a  page, you know what’s going on with this boy, and in my case, I felt ill, and nearly put the book down soon after I realized what this book was about.

Some years ago there was a case about an Austrian father who’d forced his daughter to live in a room deep in his basement where he raped her for decades, fathering seven children with her, and then raising some of those children as adoptees.  I was horrified at this news story, and angered.  The idea of such criminality is repulsive in a way that words can’t express; deep within myself as I listened to the news and read about the story, I felt myself cringing, becoming physically sick—the strong emotional memories of what was only a news story (albeit a deeply affecting one) to me a few years ago were brought back nearly full force when I started to read ROOM.  The novel’s central idea is a grotesque one but what made me continue to read this book was, at first, the idea of a triumphant ending, reading further I was captured by the author’s masterly use of language, then Donoghue’s close attention to details, and her composition of a world where every consideration was made to show how people could actually live trapped in such a situation.  Donoghue’s unnamed mother in ROOM has a son named Jake, and to maintain both his and her sanity, and to make things as normal as she remembers things to have been outside of ROOM, she creates a world of known things for her son, devoting herself to her five year old as his mother, playmate, friend, older sister, advisor, teacher, coach but not as his savior.  That’s Jake’s job for her.  In the midst of living each day in a small shack (“Room”), surviving tedium, and the listing of what Jake and his mother have to do every day to keep from disintegrating as people, I found not a misplaced thought, nor an untrue sentiment.  This must be what it’s like for some people who have lived through such horror.  And it may be exactly like what some poor souls are going through right now, in shacks and dungeons around the world…I literally shudder at such a thought.  I shudder at the “truth telling” (in the way that actors refer to a superior acting performance as “truth”) in this novel.

You would think that you can’t get much drama into such a small space or in reading about brushed teeth, daily lessons, gym, the strategies for keeping food fresh, and what to do about ‘Old Nick’ (the kidnapper) when he comes to give Jake and his Mother “Sunday treat” (the day the kidnapper may or not bring Jake and his Mother the sometimes special things they request).  I read each of ROOM’s pages avidly, rooting for Mother and Son, hoping, and marveling at how wrapped up I got in this novel, and how at the end I couldn’t stop thinking about the book for weeks, recommending it to book friends, and wishing I knew more of what happened afterwards.  I really want to know.  I really do.

My review:  go read this book