![]() ![]() ![]() But in Room, young Jack describes his stunted life in such sunny terms that you don’t feel its poignancy. And if it’s hard to miss the symbolism of a character metaphorically reborn on Easter, you can see why critics might declare a cease-fire between the conflicting aims of the book and focus on the plot and voice of its precocious young narrator.ĭonoghue tells an inherently tragic story inspired by the Austrian case of Josef Fritzl, who raped and locked up his daughter Elisabeth, who gave birth to a son freed at the age of 5. It draws on so many literary forms or genres - satire, mystery, horror, captivity narrative, Resurrection allegory - that each gets at once too much and too little development. Why, then, has the religious dimension of Room had so little attention from critics? Perhaps because this is a novel at war with itself. Their story brims with references to God, Jesus and Christian saints. He escapes with the help of his saintly mother, who has devoted herself to saving him from their jailor, a man who abducted and raped her and fathered Jack. Her narrator is 5-year-old Jack, who spends his life imprisoned in a garden shed until he emerges from his tomb-like structure on Easter. Little, Brown, 321 pp., $24.99.Įmma Donoghue calls Room a novel about a “battle between Mary and the Devil for young Jesus,” and it’s easy to see why. ![]() Warning: This review contains plot spoilers. ![]()
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