Now I bought this book back when it was nominated for the Booker Prize and I had heard so many good things about it. But then I somehow forgot about it and there it sat on my bookshelf until last week – boy I do not regret it! (Beware for spoilers if you haven’t read it)
We hear and read all kinds of horrific stories about years of kidnap and confinement but the full picture of such a harrowing tragedy does not hit you until you read it from the oblivious innocence that is a five year old’s perspective, as he learns what is real and what isn’t in horrific captivity.
While reading this, I found it is hard to decide whether ‘Ma’s’ (no name – obviously she’s Jack’s ‘Ma’) decisions were the correct ones, if they were what I would’ve done in the same situation. Was her telling Jack that everything that he saw on TV was not real and separate from the real world the right thing to do? Now I am not a mother, and I realise that it might have been difficult for Jack to conceptually understand, but it affects his overall understanding, an understanding that’ll help him be aware of his surroundings and situation in the long term – for him to learn the truth about where he is and why he is there. On the other hand, I completely see how she wouldn’t want her five year old to realise what a horrific situation they are in, and in the case that they would never escape, she would want him to live in happy obliviousness. That’s a major question that can also be applied to many other situations: would we rather know something bad and live in its miserable consequences or not know and remain blissfully unaware? In addition, I feel as if Ma’s decision to want to keep Jack at her side at all times after their escape proves less beneficial to Jack. Although understandably after the ordeal she’s faced she doesn’t want to risk letting go of him, it is clear that she requires psychological help separate from that of her son’s, and so keeping him with her constantly does not help with his development in my opinion. Even her rush for them to live in an apartment together so soon after her attempted suicide doesn’t seem like a good idea – it looked like Jack was doing a lot better with his grandparents to be honest!
The novel also touches upon how Jack comes to terms, as we all have, with the fact that our parents are not as worldly and all knowing as we see them from young eyes. There is only so much that ‘Ma’ can answer before starting to make things up. And his realisation becomes increasingly apparent e.g. when his Uncle Paul informs him that sewage does not go into the sea as his Ma previously informed him and he also realises that people do in fact lie. I feel as if this is an honestly raw feeling that we all experience, as the innocent beliefs we carry in childhood become increasingly watered down with society’s harsh reality – that people lie, even the people we love lie.
The moment when Jack bids goodbye to Room and realises how cramped and squalid the place he once called home really is, is in my opinion probably one of the most touching moments in the whole novel, especially as Ma doesn’t have the same strength and courage to bear it as her five year old son does. It’s the first step to staring to forget the past and staring afresh and I found it so beautiful how Jack had the incentive to take that step when his mother didn’t. It truly shows Jack starting to become his own person away from “the spit” of his Ma.
Overall, I loved Emma Donoghue’s first-person portrayal of Jack, I honestly think she got the language and simplistic thoughts ‘spot on’ – even how several words are joined together in one instance when Jack is nervous and says them all at once. However, I must admit that I honestly felt that after the point of escape the narrative voice changed and did not feel the same any more. To add to this, I felt the end was very rushed and Jack’s development seemed far too quick. Regardless, I loved the simplicity of living the horribleness of Room through Jack’s eyes in the beginning of the novel, it made a touching novel despite it’s negatives.