Just Finished Reading "Room" by Emma Donoghue

To show just how far out of the loop I am regarding recent movies, I didn't realize until just now that the film adaptation to the 2010 book I just finished reading, Room by Emma Donoghue, came out in 2015 and was nominated the next year for Best Picture at the Oscars.  I discovered the book while surveying suggested reading on the Web and checked it out from the library.  The story, reportedly loosely based on a couple of real events, is about a mother and her five-year-old son, Jack, whose lives for years have been solely within the confines of a single room...for mom it's been seven years and for Jack he defines his entire existence and world from within those four walls.  A man they call "old Nick" had kidnapped her one day and taken her to a small building he had constructed in his heavily-shielded backyard...they're locked in and depend on him for food and supplies.  The narrative is told completely from Jack's perspective, and the author masterfully depicts through him his uneven intellectual, social and emotional development as well as the incredible job his mother did under such duress in raising him from birth while protecting him from their captor.  Beyond this, I'd better not reveal what happens as I don't won't to spoil the plot for you should you decide to read it or watch the movie...

For a five-year old, Jack is remarkably skilled at expressing himself...at that age I was much more reticent to open my mouth about anything and when I did as often as not I didn't adequately get my point across.  There is much of the book I can't describe for fear of spoiling the plot, but in a very general sense let me make an observation: many of the things people say as social convention, as well as subjects taboo for discussion, will come out in the book and become a major part of Jack's life and learning.   I thought Emma Donoghue hit a home run with this novel and its compassionate but very disturbing portrayal of people struggling in an extreme state of bondage...the analogies to other areas of life are endless.  None of us has complete control over our own lives either, and while we may not be forced to endure the level of oppression that Room's protagonists were forced into, each of us...like them...has the choice to decide how we will deal with it, whether it be to calculate the variables and try to adapt or to roll the dice and attempt complete deliverance. Also, each of us needs to be more compassionate and forgiving of our actions when we were children (and those of others as well), with Jack as an extreme case of someone whose worldview is so distorted that his spoken words can be shocking, but not at all his fault...he has to take life and reality in the way it was presented to him, just like us.  Room is one of the best books I've read recently, but I warn you that it's pretty intense, emotionally and in other ways...