Room, by Emma Donoghue--a review

Room, by Emma Donoghue, was one of those books I was afraid to pick up because I had heard just a tidbit about it: the book was about a five-year-old boy locked up in a single room, and it was from the boy's point of view. I have a rule about not reading books or seeing movies that feature children in peril. The subject is just too disturbing for me, so that's my rule.

However, I kept hearing about Room--that it was a wonderful book, that it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and that it was really original. So I broke my rule and bought it (on the iPad--the first book I've read in that format, by the way).

I'm happy I broke my rule, because I really enjoyed reading Room. The novel tells the story of 5-year-old Jack, who lives in one room with his mother, Ma. The reason they live there is that Ma was kidnapped when she was nineteen, and has been held prisoner in a specially-designed 12-foot-square back-yard shed by her captor, Old Nick.

I was wowed by Donoghue’s ability to effectively communicate the feelings, language and world of a five-year-old who was born and raised in captivity, cut off from society. I was drawn in, not just by the tension I felt about the danger Ma and Jack were in, but also by the intricacies of their world.

Spoiler alert—I’m sorry, I found I just couldn’t talk about this book without revealing some major plot points. If you really don't want to know what happens in the book, read no further. But I don't think knowing what happens spoils the book, so...

The first part of the book is about Jack and Ma’s captivity, and the tension and sense of dread builds really well as Ma realizes, and we realize, that there is no way mother and child will continue to survive in this situation as it is, and they have to attempt a daring escape plan. I was pleasantly surprised to find that a major portion of the story takes place after their dramatic escape, when they have to adjust to “Outside”.

While I was fascinated by the way Ma had created a routine that kept her sane and her son safe and healthy inside Room, I was even more interested in their life after captivity. I was so happy that Donoghue didn’t end the book when Jack and Ma escaped, but rather went on to explore what it meant for Jack to enter a huge, frenetic, bewildering world at the age of five, and how hard it was for Ma to reenter that world after seven years of being held prisoner.

Donoghue is spot on with the voices—obviously of Jack and the immensely sympathetic Ma, but also with Ma’s doctor, nurse, mother, brother, sister-in-law, father, and new stepfather. Each of these minor characters adds layers to the complexity of Jack’s adaptation to the big world outside, and to Ma’s difficulty dealing with her feelings of guilt and sadness.

I was pleasantly surprised by Room. I'm glad I got over my difficulties with the subject matter and went ahead and read it. It was an intense read, but very rewarding. It was one of those books I just couldn't put down--I know I stayed up far past my bedtime to finish it, and that's a rare thing for me these days. I'm looking forward to reading more of Emma Donoghue's work.

Virginia Woolf's birthday...

Hello again! It's been months, I know. I've been busy with...just everything, and I neglected this poor blog. I guess I needed a vacation from something, so blogging took a backseat.

But it's Virginia Woolf's birthday, so I thought I'd post a link to the 59 Things You Didn't Know About Virginia Woolf on flavorwire. I didn't know any of these facts, and many are disturbing or just plain sad. But I can relate to number 14: "Woolf delighted in the physical act of writing words on paper. From the age of 11, she was continually experimenting with different kinds of pens in hope of finding one that would provide the perfect sensation." Also, number 27 made me laugh: "After getting married, Woolf thought she should learn some domestic skills, so she enrolled in a school of cookery. Shortly after, she accidentally baked her wedding ring in a suet pudding." Poor Virginia!

I'm also rushing to finish Room, by Emma Donoghue (which is short-listed for the Booker Prize, I believe). I was scared to pick this one up, due to the subject matter, but it's not hard to read--just the opposite, in fact. It's a riveting page-turner, and I'm almost finished...

Anybody else reading any page-turners?

Lazy blogger

I've been such a lazy blogger lately, it's pathetic. But at least I haven't been a lazy reader. I've been working my way through Jonathan Franzen's Freedom: A Novel for my book group, which meets in early November. I'm hooked. It's as I remember from The Corrections: A Novel--the man can write.

I ran across an interview with Emma Donoghue, whose novel Room: A Novel s nominated for the Booker Prize. I generally avoid books in which children are in serious peril, but this book sounds fascinating. It's written from the point of view of a five-year-old, which must have been pretty tough to pull off. It's been getting good reviews, so onto my list it goes.

The real reason I've been distracted from blogging is that I'm planning a trip to Paris. My husband and I are going on a sort of second honeymoon to the city of light, a place I've yearned to explore.

I've been obsessed with figuring out where to eat and what to do and where to walk. Of course, we're going in early November, so there is the distinct possibility of rain and rather colder temperatures than I'm used to here in L.A., so I may not be able to do all the things I'd like to do while I'm there. But I'm going to cram a lot in, I promise!

Of course I'm going to make a pilgrimage to Shakespeare and Co., but I'm not sure about other bookish things. I'm going to try to take a chocolate tour of Paris, though. And there's always the question of how many books to bring, and which ones!

So all you fab folks out there who have been to Paris, please leave me some recommendations! What should I see, do, eat, read?

To read next, and BTT snuck up on me--Encouragement

For our next read, my book group chose the book I was coveting last week--Just Kids, by Patti Smith. It's the memoir of her romance and lifelong friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe, and how they spurred each other to become artists. I had to laugh--a bunch of my book groupers had the same idea I did, so I didn't have to persuade anyone--they even brought the New York Times Book Review from that week, which featured Just Kids.

I also have a copy of the Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel, on my nightstand. It's pretty hefty (um, 560 pages), and it's historical, but I think I'm up for the challenge. It's about Henry VIII, through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, his close advisor. I know it mixes fiction with fact, but I'm looking forward to learning more about this era of history by diving into this novel.

Is it really Thursday already? I don't know where the time goes. My book group friend told me her husband woke her in the middle of the night recently, to say he'd solved all their problems--he was just going to add another hour to the day between 3 and 4 in the morning. Sounds good to me! Here's this week's Booking Through Thursday question:

Suggested by Barbara H:

How can you encourage a non-reading child to read? What about a teen-ager? Would you require books to be read in the hopes that they would enjoy them once they got into them, or offer incentives, or just suggest interesting books? If you do offer incentives and suggestions and that doesn’t work, would you then require a certain amount of reading? At what point do you just accept that your child is a non-reader?

In the book Gifted Hands by brilliant surgeon Ben Carson, one of the things that turned his life around was his mother’s requirement that he and his brother read books and write book reports for her. That approach worked with him, but I have been afraid to try it. My children don’t need to “turn their lives around,” but they would gain so much from reading and I think they would enjoy it so much if they would just stop telling themselves, “I just don’t like to read.”

This is a tough question. Right now, I have two kids who don't read enough for my liking (and one who doesn't read yet!). My 13-year-old and his younger brother (10) both like to read, but both feel like they don't have enough time to read for pleasure, because they have reading to do for school. I don't get it, because when I was a kid, I was always trying to sneak more reading in.

I think my eldest really likes reading, but is seduced by social networking, video games, and other stuff that we didn't even have when I was a kid. My younger one doesn't like reading quite as much as his brother did at this age, but he does love a good story, and really gets into the books they read at school. For his "free reading" (reading he has to do for school, but he gets to pick the book), he most recently finished Gary Paulsen's Hatchet, which his older brother also loved, and he just had to read the last page aloud to me, because it had a surprise ending--gotta love that. But I wish he would pick up a book on his own more often. I'm not sure how to encourage it, other than getting more books for them from the library, and trying to provide them with some down time when they can read. I limit the "screen time" anyway, so that helps create time for reading. But I don't like to push reading too hard, for fear that they will just resist.

If anyone has any good tips to get kids to read more, I'm all ears.

I'm hoping to like Penelope Fitzgerald...

Penelope Fitzgerald is one of those authors I have learned about solely through the blogging world. I found I kept running across her name, mostly in the blogs of British bloggers I respect, and I was intrigued.

She wrote nine novels, three of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and one of which won that coveted prize. So of course I mooched whatever I could of her work from BookMooch. I got The Blue Flower, which was highly praised when it came out in 1995, and reconstructs the life of an 18th-century German romantic poet and tells of his love for a young girl. I also got Offshore, which won the Booker Prize in 1979, and tells the stories of an eccentric bunch of people who live in houseboats on the Thames.

I'm not sure which one to start first! They're both slim, and they are on such different topics. Evidently Fitzgerald is also known for the breadth of her subject matter! And she embarked on her literary career at the age of 60, which also endears her to me. I love late bloomers!

Anyone have anything to say about Fitzgerald? Advice about which book to read first, or other favorites of hers? Let me know!