Book review - Room (Emma Donoghue)

[cybermule]

My aunt lent me this. She's 70 and funky and thought it was really good. I enjoyed it for about a third of the book, mostly because I have a child about the age of the narrator, plus it was an interesting story, then someone told me it was written based on the Fritzl case. I should have realised this, but I don't really analyse things too much as I like to read / listen / watch without pre-conceptions and I just didn't really grasp this. To be honest, it made me feel a bit sick. If all the profits had gone to some home for battered women I'd have been ok, but they weren't.

I got about 3/4 of the way through and started reading about where the mum describes her first still-born birth and how the baby was strangled by it's own umbilical cord. My sprog was born tangled in the cord, and this was just too personal a slant and made me feel that the whole thing was vaguely pornographic. Emotions were being manipulated for schlock and money - that's porn, basically. So I instantly quit on it.

It's not a bad book, it just didn't work for me on an ethical level.

Comments

[janey-m.livejournal.com]

You might find this interview with Emma Donohue interesting:

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/perspective/articles/1430

Is there a difference between based on and triggering an idea? I think many novels are based on horrific events in the real world. The Cellist of Sarajevo, We Need to Talk About Kevin for example, and a massively long list relating to 9/11. Personally, I'd disagree that art is inethical unless it is charitable. I enjoyed Room, but I probably found it less traumatic because I am not a mother.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

Yeah - that's probably fair. I found the maternal aspect quite unsettling.