Room question

I personally didn't find his speech too advance. He used the word herbivore, which may throw some people off, but it wasn't unusual for me. I learnt that word at the same age because I use to love dinosaurs and grew up on dino cartoons, which he had access to and he also loved dinosaurs.L if I remember correctly.

I loved the book, but I know some people found the child's perspective childish, but for me it made a terrible situation much easier to read.

I suppose you could say it took advantage of the hysteria surrounding the real life event of fritzel. It probably skimmed over the mental recovery, making the whole process of moving on easier than it would be.

Some people couldn't relate to the mother after rescue, thinking she was a bad mother, though I felt she did the best she could do under the circumstances.

I really loved this book, and I found myself wanting more when it was over. I want to know how they are now. If Ma met someone and has a normal life with a man again, all that stuff.
Im probably one of the few people that went into this book blind. I hate spoilers of any kind! So at first I just thought She was keeping him locked in the room, had no idea she was being held captive! Any one else like to go into books blind too?

For your assignment you'd have to describe what qualifies as great literature in the first place and then discuss whether or not "Room" fits into that category.

Your brief is to define great/classic literature and then decide if this book fits the description or not, giving reasons and evidence. You need to consider if 'a good read' is necessarily good literature and perhaps think of themes covered in accepted classics eg Dickens, Shakespeare, Austen, Steinbeck etc. as well as writing style and voice and how these are innovative or derivative. You might think of 'Catcher in the Rye' as a comparable book. I think there are problems about the limitations of the situation in this book and how much we can learn from it, and then I think of Kafka's short story 'Metamorphosis' and think I might call that a classic even if it deals with a 'fantasy' situation. That might be another text worth comparing with 'Room'. Good luck with your assignment.

Claire, Are you still looking for someone to find fault in this book?????

Your original request is below. We seem to be getting way off topic. Did you ever finish your paper???? How did you do???? Would love to read an update.

Take care, MJ

Your original post is below:

I need someone to find fault in this book

Claire Dec 11, 2012 08:22am
So, I'm writing a paper on this book in my AP Literature class about whether or not it's "great" literature and I'm having a terrible time finding legitimate negative reviews of this book. If anyone could direct me to some or tell me what YOU didn't like about the book it would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry, not sure how I moved a post up or down, I meant to reply to that post.

The ending. I felt it ended far too quickly.

While some thought this book was dark/depressing, too realistic, etc. I found this book to be uplifting in that even in the worst of situations, to a child, a mothers love can fill their entire universe. To Jack, Room was comfortable, fun, imaginative, and his home. He was happy.

But I would agree with a statement from a commenter above, that the book fell a little flat after the escape.

I agree with Davytron. How do you define 'great literature?' You could argue that any book written from the perspective of a 5 year old can't be great literature, as literature relates to sentence structure and syntax, but if great literature makes you feel something profoundly, then I'd argue that Room is indeed great literature. All great literature must have it's detractors (people who for whatever reason didn't like it). (Personally, I hate Wuthering Heights and find Dickens a bore, but that doesn't mean it's not great literature.) And how wonderful for a writer to be able to convey with the same words several varying opinions by different readers! The sign, in my opinion, of great literature may be when a writer gains a lot of positive and favourable reviews, combined with a hefty handful of negative ones.

She shouldn't post it online because then she could be accused of plagiarizing her assignment.

I can't get over the language - I can't put my mind into a child's vocabulary and call it a relaxing read... it just can't happen with this book, on others I can, but not this one...

Thought the story while in captivity was excellent. Post-escape, not so much! That part just didn't ring true to me. Almost like written by 2 different authors. Over-all, would still probably recommend it as I loved the first part so much.

I enjoyed Room more after they were rescued. I found the first part of the story very frustrating. It was different than anything I have read.

Honestly if this is for a literature class, you might want to focus on the narrative instead of the content.

As well, comments and reviews made by fellow readers probably isn't the best source for a critical analysis of a novel in comparison to "classical literature, and what can be defined as such." :)

Hope it went well.

This wasn't my favourite Emma D. novel. Read Slammerkin. Now THAT was a fabulous read. Room I felt was just ok. Interesting and sad subject matter, and I too didn't like the child's voice. Found it annoying.

loved it - different, clever book

I think that having the child do most of the narrating it made the book more tolerable. It would have been too dark from an adult's point of view. However it was interesting how they seemed to make a terrible situation into something they could live with. Not my favorite but the suspense as to whether he would let them go or they would escape kept me reading.

Sorry, loved it!

Post-rescue, as was mentioned earlier, was truly tragic albeit realistic. A normal person probably just wants the "happily ever after" scenario and we certainly don't get that with this read! The conclusion left me with a sense of misery, the damage had been done and there would never be a normal-happy life for this boy. Questions like "what kind of a man will he become?" hounded me. Sadly, although I read the book a year ago, I haven't and probably won't recommend it. The main memory that it left me with was that life was better in the captivity of a sexual deviant than in the real world.

I found the post-rescue section flat after the drama of the escape. The withdrawal and attempt at suicide by the mother did make sense to me however. The journalist's questions made Ma doubt her own motives, that she may have kept Jack prisoner with her for so long for her own comfort when there were other possibilities, however unlikely - bargaining for his freedom, escape, death.

I thought it was a good book, just not a classic.

When I first started reading the book, I found the child's perspective a bit annoying, but as it went along and I got into the book, I didn't notice as much. I thought the book was pretty interesting and compelling. So different and unique to tell such a story from the perspective of the child.

I think you'll have to define great literature (as in your assignment outline) for us before we can tell you if it is indeed great or not.

i didn't really like the mom's suicide attempt - i felt that after 5+ years of being held by Old Nick that the attempt once she was free just didn't mesh with her character - it was like she gave up fighting once she was free

This is a pretty small-minded group. We spoke like he did when we were five. For one thing, my friends and I learned to read fairly early (most of us when we were about three). Smart children develop vocabularies long before they get to school. Constant exposure to adult-level conversation(she didn't have anyone else to talk to) would lead to a precocious child, especially if she didn't speak down to him in the patronizing way adults normally do.

Although I really enjoyed this book overall and I thought the story line was good. I did find that some of the language used was too advanced for that of the 5 year old boys perspective, especially considering he hadn't had any outside influences to educate him.

I did not like the voice it was written in. I know that was the point, to have the view of this child, but I found it so annoying that I hated the book because of it. I also had no empathy for the victim. I just felt there must have been something she could have done to get out of there. I guess I'm in the minority but I found it hard to like anyone in this book. I prefer books about empowered women. Great literature- definitely not. Good contemporary fiction- I'll give you that.

I got about halfway through the book and got bored with it. Couldn't finish it. Maybe it was the way it was written, I don't know. Maybe if there had been different perspectives, like from the mother or even Old Nick, it might have kept my interest more. Can't say.

I don't think you need to find fault in the book. If you didn't think there was anything wrong with it, that's a legitimate response. Although technically I would say that no book is ever flawless (although I have found some I feel that way about on a purely personal level), if you think that there is nothing wrong with the book and can't find any outside negative reviews (which I assure you existed at its time of publication - many people did not like this book nor find the voice effective), I would suggest discussing that rather than searching for problems.

Jack's perspective is probably too advanced for a five-year-old, but this has long been considered an appropriate construction for authors of adult literature to use when utilizing child narrators. It is also entirely possible a precocious child could have the insights he does, so it's not that much of a stretch, especially given that the psychological and cognitive development of a child in his situation is relatively unexplored territory.

I personally can't find fault in this book - Emma's use of voice was poignant (much more so than if we had ever heard Ma), and the long drawn out beginning was effectively dull at times. I think this was very purposeful.

The only thing that truly confuses me about this book is why an Irish-Canadian author would place such a story in America when it clearly could have happened anywhere. I suppose to appeal to an American audience, but that bothers me a bit, and I do critique that tactic for bookselling even though I understand it.

I remember one critique of the book being that it is very 'zeitgeist-y' in its discussion of materialism, and that therefore it doesn't have the staying power of a true classic. This is potentially a legitimate point, but I don't think that it has to take away from the book today, and it may well be representative of our time in the future... which is what true classics do.

Too advanced language for a 5 year old boy.