Room is a popular book right now. Based on recent news events, it’s about a young woman who was abducted and imprisoned in a small room for I’ve forgotten exactly how-many-long years. Unlike the real-life cases, “Ma” was not a child when she was kidnapped. The story is charmingly told from the viewpoint of her now five-year-old son, Jack (Happy birthday, Jack), who has never been outside the room where he was born and they are imprisoned.
There are only five or six chapters in this story, and they are long. The first two are mostly world-building, and one thing that makes it interesting to me, as a writer, is that Jack and Ma’s world is the exact opposite of the usual type of world-building that appears in science fiction and fantasy books such as Tolkien’s or Rowling’s. In those books, cities and countries, species and creatures, and magical abilities are created to expand the world beyond our current reality. In Room, the world is the opposite. It is reduced to the bare necessities that will fit into a space the size of a backyard shed. While it was fascinating to imagine, and even more interesting to see how it was all perfectly natural to Jack, being the only world he knows, by the end of the second chapter, I was ready to move on. I wanted to see something happen.
And happen, it does. Jack is finally alerted to the fact that a whole other world exists beyond the confines of Room, and it’s naturally scary to him in the same way that we might be a little frightened if, for instance, we were suddenly hit with proof that we’re not the only intelligent species in the universe, or discovered that life is not what we think it is. That’s kind of mind-blowing to us as adults. Imagine what it’s like to a five-year-old. But due to Ma’s persistence and Jack’s bravery, their world does suddenly expand, and then Jack must learn to adjust.
There are only five or six chapters in this story, and they are long. The first two are mostly world-building, and one thing that makes it interesting to me, as a writer, is that Jack and Ma’s world is the exact opposite of the usual type of world-building that appears in science fiction and fantasy books such as Tolkien’s or Rowling’s. In those books, cities and countries, species and creatures, and magical abilities are created to expand the world beyond our current reality. In Room, the world is the opposite. It is reduced to the bare necessities that will fit into a space the size of a backyard shed. While it was fascinating to imagine, and even more interesting to see how it was all perfectly natural to Jack, being the only world he knows, by the end of the second chapter, I was ready to move on. I wanted to see something happen.
And happen, it does. Jack is finally alerted to the fact that a whole other world exists beyond the confines of Room, and it’s naturally scary to him in the same way that we might be a little frightened if, for instance, we were suddenly hit with proof that we’re not the only intelligent species in the universe, or discovered that life is not what we think it is. That’s kind of mind-blowing to us as adults. Imagine what it’s like to a five-year-old. But due to Ma’s persistence and Jack’s bravery, their world does suddenly expand, and then Jack must learn to adjust.
Room is an entertaining story on a rare subject in novels. I’m not going to grade it on judgments about things Ma should or should not have done as other readers have, because until we’re in that situation, we have no room to judge. Some of Ma’s choices and decisions are what make the story and characters realistic.
Four bookmarks (one deducted for the chapter that made me want something to hurry up and happen). For an explanation of my bookmark system, click HERE.
