Sorry I dissapeared for a fortnight! I simply did not have the time to post anything, and also, I did not have much time for reading either. Actually, my September and beginning of October have been horrible reading months, I've only finished five books in a month and a half, and only one this far in October!! But dancingwise it's been perfect! :) Since the autumn season began we have danced in two grand prix competitions and won both of them!! (Imagine a very happy smiley here :))
My September wrap-up is here:
Books read: 4 (That's actually 1 more than in August!!??! Slump-ety slump!)
Books read in English: 2
Books read in Finnish: 2
Finnish books read: 1 (nonfiction, professional literature)
Fiction: 2
Nonfiction: 2
Books reviewed: 0
The books I read in September:
- Bowers, Chris: Roger Federer -The Greatest
- Donoghue, Emma: Room
- Joyce, James: Dublinilaisia (Finnish translation of Dubliners)
- Lahti, Leena: Monikulttuurinen johtaminen (A book about diversity management)
As I've mentioned in here before Emma Donoghue has this year quite quickly become one of my favorite writers. I have now read four of her books and have enjoyed every single one of them. However, if, without my knowing who the author was, someone would have recommended me a novel about a woman abducted and kept in an enforced, soundproofed garden shed for seven years during which time she would repeatedly be raped by her capturer, get pregnant and bear a son and then try to raise that son in their roomsized world, I would have actually said no thank you, that is not a book for me. I find the subject matter deeply disturbing, but as it was written by Emma Donoghue I knew from the start that I wanted to read Room. And what a read it was!
Room is the story of Jack and her Ma. Ma was kidnapped when she was a 19 year old student. Two years later she bore Jack. What makes the story so special is that the narrator is the 5 year old Jack. The Room is his world. To make things easier Ma has told him that everything he sees on TV is not real, it's just TV. But things are changing and Ma has to tell Jack about the world outside. Jack has been happy in his and Ma's little world and he has a really hard time trying to understand that there really is an outside world.
Jack's world is totally turned upside down when half way down the book he is able to escape and also get his Ma out from the Room. In the Room he has been a clever little boy, who knows his surroundinsd, his little world. He is linguistically very gifted and well ahead of other 5 year olds when it comes to vocabulary and reading, but he has never descended stairs or even seen wide spaces, and in the outside world he is in many ways a total newborn. Also Ma has very hard time adjusting to her freedom.
Room is told by Jack in his own words, in his own vocabulary, in his own language. As a non-native English speaker I probably missed some of the specialities of the language of Jack, but I loved the way Donoghue used the 5 year old's perspective in the narrative. It was both shocking, heartbreaking and eye-opening when Jack at the end of his first evening outside asked if he could now go back to the Room to sleep. What was prison for Jack's mother was the whole world for Jack, a world where he had been happy.
I must say I liked everything in this book. I loved little Jack! What a wonderful little boy he was! And I admired his mother for her courage during the years of her ordeal. I was saddened that she found it so hard trying to adjust to normal life again. I was worried for Jack after it was made clear how much he still had to learn to really be able to function in the outside world. And as much as I had loved for a plain and simple happy ending I must say Donoghue was able to finish the story very well. After the last lines on the last page I was left with hope. And that was enough. It was plenty. It was perfect.
Room has cemented Emma Donoghue's place on my list of favorite writers. It has also shown what a versatile writer she is. Short stories, romance, historical fiction, and now this novel. Wow!
I'll count Room towards the GLBT Challenge. There is no GLBT characters or issues in the book, but Donoghue is an out lesbian.
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