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Thanks for sharing! I've got to say - I really agree with some of your answers. This book dealt with a very dark subject matter, but it still managed to leave out all the gory details. We know what was happening was bad, we know Old Nick is bad, we know life had to be hard for Ma. Yet we only catch glimpses of it through Jack's eyes. I'm glad the author handled such sensitive material so well, without the need to make it into a glorified book of torture scenes.
Cassie wrote: "Thanks for sharing! I've got to say - I really agree with some of your answers. This book dealt with a very dark subject matter, but it still managed to leave out all the gory details. We know wh..."
Yeah I think that Emma Donaghue is one of few authors who is good at the 'show don't tell' skill when it comes to writing. Even though you know Old Nick sired Jack you never really think of him as his father. Ma saying so only confirmed what the reader was thinking.
It was refreshing for me. I have trouble reading books that get to descriptive with their violence. Are her other books like this as well? Darker subject material but handled sensitively?
While reading this book I was really impressed by the way Ma handeled the whole situation. She coud have easily denied her child or lost hope after a year or two and yet she kept on playing games like scream which could have led to a neighbours suspicion thus freeing/discovering them. Adding to that she managed to give her child a basic education and a safe haven.I think we could use more strong female characters like Ma to be represented in literature.
Plus I completely agree with your answers regarding the questions mine are similar.
Emma Donaghue is a really good write, with the book written in Jack's perspective. It kind of softens the harshness, but I think it also kind of amplifies the harshness since it's a kid going through it.I agree that while Old Nick's backstory is super interesting, if she included any of that people would end up sympathizing with him.
Ma is a really good character because she has to be incredibly strong, but she deals with completely understandable mental illness.
When I was in college (an English Literature major), I was taking an art class and was instructed to stop putting so many details in my pictures. My instructor said that the mind completes the picture on its own and gives each viewer their own perspective. He was referring to things like not drawing every feather on a bird but I think literature is leaning in the same direction. When I go back and read the older classics, there seems to be so much detail that I sometimes get bogged down and want to skip a paragraph or few. In the new books it feels like we are allowed to bring part of our own experiences into the story line and imagine what must be happening instead of always being told all the details. I think that in the same way that the mind finishes pictures in our minds, it also completes a bit of the story line based on our personal expectation of character behavior.
I really enjoyed the discussion questions at the end of Room and I found myself having very similar answers to what you shared. The book being written in Jack's perspective does soften the harshness of the situation but it also allows the reader to amplify their feelings knowing that it is a child going through this situation. For me personally, it broke my heart just a little bit more thinking about that little boy, reading it in his perspective, and realizing how close in age he was to my own son.
1) The story is (I believe) narrated by Jack to soften the harshness of the story a bit, tone down the darker elements if you will as jack doesn’t understand the awfulness for what it is. While this is soothing in one way it can also be scary in another as Jack’s tone doesn’t capture the right ambience leaving the reader unprepared.
2) Due to Ma’s excellent parenting Jack fortunately won’t be left “stunted” by his experience. He’ll probably always have some anxiety about the world around him and the people in it, but his actions throughout the novel show that even at the tender age of five he’s capable of some courageous feats. As the doctor pointed out, Ma got him out when he was still “plastic”.
3) If I were Ma there would be a lot of things I’d miss about the ‘outside’ like my family, my freedom, the right to my own body etc. Such simple things we take for granted like being able to choose your own medicine, clothes, books and food are all denied to Ma.
4) I can’t imagine what I would do differently if I were Jack’s parent. Like Ma I would never have trusted Old Nick to just “take Jack away” when he was a baby. How would I know he was alright? Maybe I might have told Jack sooner about the outside world, but I wouldn’t want to sadden him by telling him about things he might never see!
5) It’s plain to see that if Jack hadn’t come along; poor Ma would have died either from suicide or just lost the will to live. Jack gave Ma the will to live.
6) For Sunday “treat’ I might ask for makeup. Not only would it make Old Nick look suspicious by having him buy something girly but more importantly I would wait for him to leave and put makeup powder on the keypad to see which ones he’s pressed…
7) I wouldn’t say there was a dynamic between Ma and Old Nick any more than there’s a dynamic between a person and the cancer affecting their body, or a prisoner of war and their interrogator. At times it seems like Old Nick deluded himself into thinking he was important to Ma, almost as if she were his wife! While I am curious about Old Nick and his real identity and backstory, I can see why Emma Donaghue avoided fleshing out his character. For one thing it’s not his story, its Jack and Ma’s story and by giving him a backstory she runs the risk of humanizing him which is not something you’d want from such a character. You wouldn’t humanize Jose Fritzl, Ariel Castro or Phillip Garrido? With fictional characters, especially the villains, people (myself included) have a tendency to find sympathetic qualities for example Francis Dolarhyde in “Red Dragon”. He’s a serial killer who murders entire families and violates the corpses of the mothers yet still manages to be a sympathetic character! More than likely though you wouldn’t sympathize with his real life counterpart “The BTK Killer” (blind, torture, kill)?
8) Joining the outside world for Jack must have been what it was like for Alice falling down the rabbit hole, it’s both terrifying and exciting and with so many puzzles to figure out. For Ma it’s mostly good but with some negative side effects. She gets to see her home and her family and friends again. She’s no longer being violated night after night and thus has regained control over her body and she’s no longer having to raise her son in squalor. While having Jack saved her it also meant she had to bottle her negative feelings for his sake. When they’re free and Jack is no longer dependent on just her she’s free to release five years’ worth of pent up anger, misery and despair and revulsion which all come crashing down on her all at once, resulting in a brutal case of PTSD.
9) While on the one hand the media prove beneficial in helping to capture Old Nick and bring him to justice, they also collide with Ma and her family who are just trying to rebuild their lives. One reporter’s insensitivity proves nearly fatal to Ma.
10) Teaching children the difference between reality and TV is always a tricky one. You just have to explain it as best as you can as you go along. Animations are drawings, fantasy and sci-fi is make believe and period pieces are people playing dress up. Unfortunately for Ma and Jack this is their only link to the outside world so in a sense it becomes their ‘reality’. Ma manages to keep on top of that by not letting Jack watch TV for too long.
11) Ever since the creation of fairytales like Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty, people have become enamored with stories about long term captivity and confinement partly out of sympathy and wanting to protect the “Princess in the Tower” character (though Ma can hardly be considered a ‘damsel in distress’ and the only character that fits the bill of a ‘knight in shining armor’ is her five year old son). There’s also disbelief that somebody could be held captive for so long without even a hint of suspicion from those around. The Bystander effect is often suspected in such circumstances. The Fritzl case is a prime example of this trope at play.
12) Grandma’s response to Jack seems to be one of love but certainly no small amount of confliction must be residing in her. She unlike her husband fully accepts their grandson into their life but due to the nature of his upbringing he has a few eccentricities (though not nearly as much as he could have thanks to Ma’s excellent parenting) that she finds difficult to handle at times. Her main reaction to the return of her daughter is obviously one of overwhelming relief to the point where she probably stops and wonders if it’s real and she’s not dreaming. There is some additional heartbreak as her marriage has broken up and the father of her children refuses to acknowledge his grandson because of the circumstances surrounding his birth. While I find his attitude to be unfair, I do find Ma’s father to be a sympathetic character.
13) The scene in the book that affected me the most was the big escape scene. I’m haunted by thoughts like “what if Old Nick noticed Jack wasn’t dead before he put him in the truck?” or what if the guy walking his dog hadn’t been such a caring and sharp individual? The amount of times that child abuse goes unrecognized and the number of kidnappings that happen in broad daylight… suffice to say if this plan had gone awry both Ma and Jack would’ve been goners! I also keep thinking “what if I’d been that dog walker and I saw an average looking (if a bit rough) man carrying away a child that was kicking and screaming? It’s easy to assume you’d do something but the truth is children act up a lot and it’s difficult to know when to step in. for me personally though, I feel confident that I’m hot headed enough that I’d step in even if I felt like it was none of my business.