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bloodyrosemccoyThe Basics: It’s the old fairy tale: Once upon a time an ogre locked a princess away in a tower for seven years. Except in this case Once Upon A Time is Right Goddamn Now, the ogre is a creepy bachelor, the princess is an unlucky college kid, and the tower is a sound-proofed garden shed turned dungeon. And then you thank your lucky stars kids have the good sense not to recognize just how fucked-up these fairy scenarios are.
It’s especially good news for Jack, who was born into the middle of this story. Having lived all five of his years in Room, he’s content with the world, which as far as he is concerned is 121 square feet. But Jack’s frustrated Ma remembers a world outside of Room—and as Jack gets bigger and their jailer gets less stable, Ma knows they’ve got to get out. But how do you explain to someone who has never been there that there is an Outside, and the things he sees on TV are real?
This Book Is A Facehugger: It pretty much leaped out of the book drop bin and wrapped itself around my head—and I’m still trying to figure out why. I think it’s because, for all the uncomfortable true-crime skin-crawling WTF plausibility of the premise, it’s actually a speculative fiction book in disguise.
Consider: Part 1 lets you observe a strange two-person culture. It’s informed by the mainstream American culture Ma remembers and what they see on their tiny TV—but it’s also unique to these people, with its own rituals and mythos. Since you probably know the origins of a lot of the mythos Ma has built, you’ll never see it with the same one-sided view Jack does, but you do get immersed in a new perspective where, to paraphrase, The Strange Is Familiar And The Familiar Is Strange.
And then Part 2 is a classic Stranger In A Strange Land, where Jack tries to learn how to navigate outside of Room.
And When I Say “Navigate,” I Am Speaking Literally: Of course, even people from wildly different cultures start out with at least some basic things in common. Developmental milestones, for example. Jack missed a lot of these: he tends to walk into tables because he never learned to judge distances, he is startled by every strange noise, he has trouble knowing when someone is talking to him, and he takes a while to parse human features and faces. There’s also an excellently underplayed bit of dialogue showing that Jack, who has only ever talked to Ma before, is not entirely sure how to refer to her in the third-person. So yeah, Jack’s a bit more of an alien than most. At least when you go to a different country, you don’t have to stop and figure out that the people down the street are not tiny fairies, they’re just far away.
And Speaking Of Fairies: I’m not just being glib about this as a “modern fairy tale.” Donoghue is extremely conscious of it. Characters take on curiously story-like qualities—you never find out Ma’s name, because she’s Ma. Their jailer doesn’t get a “real” name, either: he is Old Nick. (BECAUSE HE’S THE DEVIL, GET IT?) Jack and the Beanstalk is a constant motif. It makes sense—and interestingly, so do the suggestions that Jack is, at least figuratively, the product of some kind of immaculate conception. (Ma firmly insists that “Jack is nobody’s son but mine.”)
It makes it even more evident that this is speculative fiction, something that would attract me, drag me through to the end, and surprise me with how darn much I enjoyed it. But then, I do like fairies and aliens.
Unintended Side Effect Of This Book: I am now far more tolerant of Dora the Explorer than I ever used to be.
It’s especially good news for Jack, who was born into the middle of this story. Having lived all five of his years in Room, he’s content with the world, which as far as he is concerned is 121 square feet. But Jack’s frustrated Ma remembers a world outside of Room—and as Jack gets bigger and their jailer gets less stable, Ma knows they’ve got to get out. But how do you explain to someone who has never been there that there is an Outside, and the things he sees on TV are real?
This Book Is A Facehugger: It pretty much leaped out of the book drop bin and wrapped itself around my head—and I’m still trying to figure out why. I think it’s because, for all the uncomfortable true-crime skin-crawling WTF plausibility of the premise, it’s actually a speculative fiction book in disguise.
Consider: Part 1 lets you observe a strange two-person culture. It’s informed by the mainstream American culture Ma remembers and what they see on their tiny TV—but it’s also unique to these people, with its own rituals and mythos. Since you probably know the origins of a lot of the mythos Ma has built, you’ll never see it with the same one-sided view Jack does, but you do get immersed in a new perspective where, to paraphrase, The Strange Is Familiar And The Familiar Is Strange.
And then Part 2 is a classic Stranger In A Strange Land, where Jack tries to learn how to navigate outside of Room.
And When I Say “Navigate,” I Am Speaking Literally: Of course, even people from wildly different cultures start out with at least some basic things in common. Developmental milestones, for example. Jack missed a lot of these: he tends to walk into tables because he never learned to judge distances, he is startled by every strange noise, he has trouble knowing when someone is talking to him, and he takes a while to parse human features and faces. There’s also an excellently underplayed bit of dialogue showing that Jack, who has only ever talked to Ma before, is not entirely sure how to refer to her in the third-person. So yeah, Jack’s a bit more of an alien than most. At least when you go to a different country, you don’t have to stop and figure out that the people down the street are not tiny fairies, they’re just far away.
And Speaking Of Fairies: I’m not just being glib about this as a “modern fairy tale.” Donoghue is extremely conscious of it. Characters take on curiously story-like qualities—you never find out Ma’s name, because she’s Ma. Their jailer doesn’t get a “real” name, either: he is Old Nick. (BECAUSE HE’S THE DEVIL, GET IT?) Jack and the Beanstalk is a constant motif. It makes sense—and interestingly, so do the suggestions that Jack is, at least figuratively, the product of some kind of immaculate conception. (Ma firmly insists that “Jack is nobody’s son but mine.”)
It makes it even more evident that this is speculative fiction, something that would attract me, drag me through to the end, and surprise me with how darn much I enjoyed it. But then, I do like fairies and aliens.
Unintended Side Effect Of This Book: I am now far more tolerant of Dora the Explorer than I ever used to be.
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Date: 2012-05-22 06:53 pm (UTC)I just read The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, about a barista/comic book artist in Santa Cruz who has to contend with an ancient evil entity. Pretty light stuff, and fun. I'm kind of a sucker for magic-hiding-in-the-real-world urban fantasy, and there were several "Hey, I recognize that!" moments for me (Santa Cruz isn't exactly my territory, but I've been to the Boardwalk a few times when I was a kid, plus it references the Loma Prieta quake, which I experienced).
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Date: 2012-05-23 04:10 pm (UTC)Have not read that one. I'll have to take a look at it. Urban fantasy is hit-or-miss with me, but when it's a hit, it's a BIG hit.
(I've been to the Boardwalk, but I sure as hell wouldn't recognize places after just one weekend in Santa Cruz. My sister might, though.)
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Date: 2012-05-23 12:57 am (UTC)I wondered if it was partly influenced by the poor woman/girl who was imprisoned in the back yard of that miserable shit and his wife- happened in the northwest here somewhere not too many years ago. But I think Donoghue had started her book before the girl escaped with her kids.
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Date: 2012-05-23 04:17 pm (UTC)I remember reading that the Duggard case had yet to break when Donoghue had written this, but that she was inspired by a similar story from Austria about a girl rescued from her father's basement along with something like six kids she'd borne him. Crazy.
I went back and found your review of it. Favorite bit: "We only know about the misery, loss and stress his mother suffers through what she says to him and what he observes of her. Jack’s life, from his point of view, is stable and loving." Ma's frustration was artfully communicated--as was her own growing dread as she realizes that Jack is getting too darn big for Room. (Seriously, what would she and Old Nick do when he turned ten? Twelve? This can't last.) And yet she manages to focus on him, and creating a world and a life for him keeps her relatively sane. Pretty cool.
(In other news, I just realized this icon I have is something you had. I can drop it if you'd prefer.)
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Date: 2012-05-23 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-23 01:21 am (UTC)If you haven't read it yet, Veronica Roth's "Divergent" is pretty fascinating. It has a really interesting world as well. Dystopian but with some unexpectedly breathtaking moments of joy here and there.
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Date: 2012-05-23 04:18 pm (UTC)I've seen Divergent floating around the hold shelves at the library. I have yet to look at it, though!
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Date: 2012-05-23 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-23 05:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-23 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-24 05:26 am (UTC)Thirty-nine women and a girl are being held prisoner in a cage underground. The guards are all male, and never speak to them. The girl is the only one of the prisoners who has no memory of the outside world; none of them know why they are being held prisoner, or why there is one child among thirty-nine adults.
One day, an alarm sounds, and the guards flee; the prisoners are subsequently able to escape. They find themselves on an immense barren plain, with no other people anywhere, and no clue as to what has happened to the world.
... and then they decide to go and look for survivors.
It is rather bleak, but the narrator (the girl, or young woman) is just one of the things that make this book unforgettable to me. She's very curious, and keeps a quick, inquisitive mind in spite of the apathy in which the other women wallow, and in spite of their lack of willingness to discuss the past. She wants to understand the world she lives in, but it is so different from what the other women remember that she's unwillingly isolated from them.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-23 06:03 pm (UTC)Of course, all fiction is speculative. If we couldn't speculate, we'd only have non-fiction (and not good non-fiction either; we seldom truly know enough about one subject to fill a comprehensive book). But among works that are openly, or perhaps more intently, speculative, perhaps there are two types: the external speculation, in which we imagine differences to the world around us, such as the presence of aliens or the existence of magic, and then there's the internal speculation, where we put a character in a strange situation and try to guess how they would behave.
For a good writer, the former would necessitate the latter. But perhaps also, the latter validates and lends perspective to the former.