A Review of Room by Emma Donoghue
X-Posted
I'll admit that I'm normally just a lurker here - never posting and only occasionally commenting with recommendations. However I decided to post this review (which can also be found at Librarything and, eventually, Amazon), because this is a hugely popular novel (having been nominated for the Booker Prize) and, after combing through quite a few reviews, professional and otherwise, I've found no one who shares my interpretation - which seemed a rather obvious one, to be quite honest. Frankly, I'm a bit shocked. I'm curious to see how controversial my opinion might be.
Oh by the way, just like nearly everyone else, I enjoyed this one and highly recommend it.
If you're interested, I invite you to read on:
Is it just me?
Am I the only one who sees this book as a sly, subversive feminist manifesto?
Not that I don’t agree with all the other people (including the Booker Prize nominating committee) who were gripped by the plot and impressed with the heroics of the utterly believable five year old narrator, "Jacker Jack." But, thematically speaking, there is so much more to this book than just original characters and a suspenseful storyline.
First off, it’s no secret that the author wrote this book in reaction to learning about Josef Fritzl, that loony-tune in Austria who kept his daughter in an underground bunker for nineteen years. And, tragically, this sort of story is hardly unique in modern times. It seems as if men are threatened by the ever growing independence of women and these sorts of extreme measures are being resorted to by some incredibly sick individuals in an attempt to re-capture some idealized version of a traditional home life or to force women into subservient roles. Ma and her offspring (in this case, the sprightly, spirited Jack) stay home awaiting the arrival of Old Nick, "the man of the house," each evening. He provides them with everything they need and, without him, they could not survive. And Ma’s only role is to raise Jack and provide pleasure for Old Nick. It reads like an incredibly disturbing parody of a 1950’s household.
It’s a shrewd perspective and, as told through Jack’s guileless point-of-view, with all his adorable antics and quirky turns of phrase, an easy one to miss. Funny thing is, Donogue even suggests that Jack, in his own naïve way, might be exploiting Ma as well. Notice how he refers to genitalia using the proper words - penis and vagina, unlike most five year olds who resort to slang like wee-wee or pee-pee. Presumably, because he lives alone with his mother, outside of society, she felt no need to be coy when teaching him to speak. Why then, would the same child always refer to breast-feeding as "getting some" or "having some?" Many readers were understandably creeped out by the constant breast-feeding and, honestly, I think that was the author’s intent. I mean, don’t we usually hear men say they are "getting some" as a euphemism for sex?
Just saying.
And finally, in the second half of the book, Ma makes an indirect reference to Woolf’s seminal feminist essay, Room of One’s Own, when explaining to Jack that she needs space from him. Again, no felicitous accident.
In the last century, Virginia Woolf wrote A Room of One’s Own, which argued for the equality of the sexes and E.M. Forster wrote A Room With A View about a young woman’s escape from Victorian repression. And now, in that same vein, we can add Emma Donoghue’s masterful Room to that esteemed literary house.
Brava.
I'll admit that I'm normally just a lurker here - never posting and only occasionally commenting with recommendations. However I decided to post this review (which can also be found at Librarything and, eventually, Amazon), because this is a hugely popular novel (having been nominated for the Booker Prize) and, after combing through quite a few reviews, professional and otherwise, I've found no one who shares my interpretation - which seemed a rather obvious one, to be quite honest. Frankly, I'm a bit shocked. I'm curious to see how controversial my opinion might be.
Oh by the way, just like nearly everyone else, I enjoyed this one and highly recommend it.
If you're interested, I invite you to read on:
Is it just me?
Am I the only one who sees this book as a sly, subversive feminist manifesto?
Not that I don’t agree with all the other people (including the Booker Prize nominating committee) who were gripped by the plot and impressed with the heroics of the utterly believable five year old narrator, "Jacker Jack." But, thematically speaking, there is so much more to this book than just original characters and a suspenseful storyline.
First off, it’s no secret that the author wrote this book in reaction to learning about Josef Fritzl, that loony-tune in Austria who kept his daughter in an underground bunker for nineteen years. And, tragically, this sort of story is hardly unique in modern times. It seems as if men are threatened by the ever growing independence of women and these sorts of extreme measures are being resorted to by some incredibly sick individuals in an attempt to re-capture some idealized version of a traditional home life or to force women into subservient roles. Ma and her offspring (in this case, the sprightly, spirited Jack) stay home awaiting the arrival of Old Nick, "the man of the house," each evening. He provides them with everything they need and, without him, they could not survive. And Ma’s only role is to raise Jack and provide pleasure for Old Nick. It reads like an incredibly disturbing parody of a 1950’s household.
It’s a shrewd perspective and, as told through Jack’s guileless point-of-view, with all his adorable antics and quirky turns of phrase, an easy one to miss. Funny thing is, Donogue even suggests that Jack, in his own naïve way, might be exploiting Ma as well. Notice how he refers to genitalia using the proper words - penis and vagina, unlike most five year olds who resort to slang like wee-wee or pee-pee. Presumably, because he lives alone with his mother, outside of society, she felt no need to be coy when teaching him to speak. Why then, would the same child always refer to breast-feeding as "getting some" or "having some?" Many readers were understandably creeped out by the constant breast-feeding and, honestly, I think that was the author’s intent. I mean, don’t we usually hear men say they are "getting some" as a euphemism for sex?
Just saying.
And finally, in the second half of the book, Ma makes an indirect reference to Woolf’s seminal feminist essay, Room of One’s Own, when explaining to Jack that she needs space from him. Again, no felicitous accident.
In the last century, Virginia Woolf wrote A Room of One’s Own, which argued for the equality of the sexes and E.M. Forster wrote A Room With A View about a young woman’s escape from Victorian repression. And now, in that same vein, we can add Emma Donoghue’s masterful Room to that esteemed literary house.
Brava.