Space (novel)
Raum ( English Room ) is a novel by the Irish - Canadian writer Emma Donoghue from 2010.
content
The story is told from the point of view and in the language of five-year-old Jack, who lives with his mother in a 16 square meter room and has never left it. The novel is divided into two sections:
The time in space . The outside world is not real to Jack . He and his mother have a television in their room, but she tells him that none of this is real, it is fantasy . For Jack, the few items of furniture - such as lamps or books - become substitute friends with whom he shares his thoughts, and he develops a very close relationship with his mother as the only contact person. The reader later learns that Jack's mother was kidnapped many years ago by a man - who Jack only calls "Old Nick" (a term for the devil in English ) - and is now imprisoned and regularly raped. He himself was conceived and born in this captivity. His mother's earlier attempts to escape had repeatedly failed and were no longer possible after Jack was born. Since he is now old enough, they both dare to try to escape again, which they succeed thanks to a trick. Old Nick is arrested a short time later and thus disappears from Jack's mind.
The time in freedom . A whole new world opens up for Jack. He explores it anxiously, although just a few weeks ago he thought it was unreal. For the first time he meets other people, does not live in want and in limited space. He describes the circumstances of the new environment from his child's point of view. He is confronted with a wide variety of situations, such as a stay in a psychiatric hospital, police questioning, the media hype about himself, his mother attempting suicide and finally the new life in an assisted living community. However, it is difficult for him to let go of his old life and he often describes moments in which he would prefer life in space to freedom.
The novel ends with Jack saying goodbye to his room.
background
The novel is based on the criminal case of Josef Fritzl , who kept his daughter prisoner in a basement apartment for around 24 years, raped her, fathered children with her and also kept her prisoner underground.
Reviews
“Emma Donoghue's novel tells of a world in the world, of a world that couldn't be narrower. At the same time, however, he also tells of the human ability to adapt to life circumstances in order to be able to survive, and of the nameless fear that arises when it comes to breaking out of the situation of submission, in other words, making the leap into the unknown dare. Sometimes it turns out to be extremely difficult to leave the familiar in favor of the unfamiliar, the alien, even when the familiar is experienced as total oppression. The repetitive mechanisms and rituals of submission are known. Don't surprise you! Emma Donoguhe [ sic ] wrote her novel, inspired by the true story of Elisabeth Fritzl, who was imprisoned with her children for years. She could have done it more sensationally and much less impressively. The concept of telling the story from a child's naive perspective may initially take some getting used to, at least in terms of style, but it is becoming increasingly effective. We encounter the tragedy of the event in all simplicity and naivety, and this increases it almost immeasurably. "
“If Emma Donoghue's novel“ Raum ”, published in the original in 2010, received good reviews in Great Britain, America and Canada and the author even made it onto the shortlist of the Booker Prize with her seventh book, then that has stumbling blocks despite the language successful achievement of the complex narrative construction: "Room" is not only dialogical in the sense that it largely consists of the dialogues between mother and child; rather, in the child's narrative cosmos everything comes into conversation with everything: inside and outside, child and adult, subject and object world, symbiosis and individual. It is this tension that makes the book worth reading - the author thankfully waives the kind of tension with which Donoghue could address her potentially sensational subject. Absolutely central to her is the figure of a child who reaches an absurd maturity in a combination of imprisonment and security that breaks all imaginations - and from this also gives rise to the very moving image of a mother who has dignity for a child and because of a child and can save vitality in a room that could also have been viewed as a grave. "
"" Room "is the story of a mother who has conceived her son from her kidnapper, an elderly man who keeps her prisoner in a specially prepared room and abuses her. From an Austrian perspective, these are Kampusch & Fritzl. In fact, "Fritzl" was the trigger, says Donoghue, "but nothing more". You've investigated similar cases around the world. (...) Donoghue has succeeded in creating an impressive book whose refusal to scandal paradoxically creates a consumer-promoting "human touch" of better Hollywood films, that is: makes it generally acceptable. "
“Even when Ma finds herself at the center of a frenzy, Ms. Donoghue makes the gutsy and difficult choice to keep the book anchored somewhere inside Jack's head. So anything that happens to his mother is filtered through his fear, love and curiosity about her. And when the book presents him with a cavalcade of new experiences, everything Jack sees must be measured against the strangely idyllic time that he spent inside Room. "
Awards
- 2010: Irish Book Award (best novel)
- 2010: Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize (best Canadian novel of the year)
filming
In 2015 the novel was made into a film by director Lenny Abrahamson . The novelist Donoghue also wrote the script for the film. The main roles were played by Brie Larson , Joan Allen , William H. Macy and Jacob Tremblay . The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in 2015 and won the Audience Award at the 40th Toronto International Film Festival that same year .
expenditure
- Emma Donoghue: Room: A Novel . Publisher Little, Brown and Company (2010). ISBN 978-0-316-09833-5 (English)
- Emma Donoghue; Armin Gontermann (translator): Room: Roman . Piper Verlag (2011). ISBN 978-3-492-05466-9 (German)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Die Presse: "On twelve square meters", from January 13, 2012
- ↑ NZZ: "There is no outside", from December 27, 2011
- ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung: "Door says his head", from November 11, 2011 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ New York Times, "A Captive's View of Life, and He's 5," September 12, 2010
- ↑ Telluride Film Review: 'Room' at variety.com, accessed September 10, 2015
