Room, by Emma Donoghue

At first, I was a little cranky that there were two books on the Man Booker shortlist with 'Room' in the title (not to mention another on the Cheltenham shortlist). It seemed like an oversight; how can this reflect the best of Commonwealth literature when two have such similar titles. Then the copy of the book I had was a slightly oversized hard cover, which also annoyed me. I put the book off.

I started reading 'Room' on Wednesday night. I had finished it by Friday morning. I found myself reading it when people left the room, while I was walking down the street, staying up until 2am because I JUST COULDN'T STOP.

'Room' is instantly compelling because of the voice of the narrator, Jack. He is five, and there are immediate clues that his world is not a normal one. In fact, it turns out that his world in simply Room. Jack's mother (who we only ever know as Ma), was kidnapped seven years earlier; Jack was born and raised in Room, and has never known more than this eleven by eleven foot space. Items in Room have proper names (after all, if there's is not another Bed in your world, why call it 'the bed' or 'that bed'? There are no other beds from which to distinguish) and genders. Necessities are requested as 'Sundaytreats' and delivered by 'Old Nick', who visits Ma after 9, when Jack is 'switched off' in Wardrobe.

While Jack knows and loves Room and all of her facets, it becomes clear that Ma is distressed and ready to leave. The games they play often have a different meaning for Jack than they do for Ma; while Scream is a fun game they play, allowing them to climb up near the skylight and yell, for Ma it is a desperate ritualistic attempt to gain the attention of someone, anyone. Ma starts to break down the boundaries of Jack's world, advising him that, now he is five, he is old enough to know that there is a world outside of Room; that things on the TV are actually real. Jack struggles with such concepts, and what they mean for him and his world.

Many novels thrive on the 'car-crash' storyline, the type of plot that is so tragic and horrible that our sympathy compels us to keep reading. 'Room' could run the risk of falling into this category, but for one factor; Jack. While at first it is jarring and horrifying to hear a child describe such a limited and warped existence, the reader quickly settles into an understanding that, for Jack, this is normal and safe. Any threats to this normality are dangerous and far more disturbing for him than his own situation could ever be. Jack's voice completely disarms and consumes the reader, allowing them to wholly connect with him; we want simultaneously to keep him safe from fearful newness, but also to gift him the freedom to escape and experience the childhood he ought never to have been denied.

Like 'A Strange Room', I found this novel completely un-put-down-able. While I'm truly a bibliophile, it's very rare that I am so absorbed in a book that I will read it while walking: 'Room' is absolutely brilliant.

The Country Girls, by Edna O'Brien

This book struck me as both so timely, and so dated; as a result, I simply couldn't get enough of this novel, at times reading in a sense of horrified anticipation. The main character, Caithleen, seems intensely naive in her story telling, despite (or perhaps because of) the adult world she is so desperate to enter into. This old-world innocence is juxtaposed with an all too current event of the over-sexualisation of young girls.

Caithleen lives in a world of uncertainty: her father is an abusive drunk, her mother dies suddenly, and she is left to divide her time between the cold convent in which she receives her education, and the dishonest and over-privileged home of her bullying 'best friend', Baba. By comparison, the elegant figure of 'Mr Gentleman' seems an attractive shelter from the storm- despite the fact that he is married and far, far older than her. He starts to cultivate a relationship with Caithleen, still very innocent at first, but clearly masking a distasteful interest on his behalf.

Caithleen is breathtakingly juvenile about the relationship, convinced the pair are in love. And perhaps love does enter the equation; at the very least, Mr Gentleman develops an obsession with Caithleen's youth and sweetness, but it does become unsettlingly apparent that she is not his first youthful prey, and that this relationship must have a termination date, which can only end painfully for Cait.

This storyline sounds abhorrent, but somehow the innocent wishfulness of Cait, as she tells her story (of moving to Dublin and making her own life, of unsatisfactory attempts to find love in the city, of refusals of other older men, of finally standing up to Baba in small ways) paints it all in a rose tinted light. Caithleen is a charming character, and the reader can't help but hope for her happiness. The ending, suprisingly, wraps up very little, but hints at a new path, which could finally lead Caithleen to that joyous life we, as reader, feel she deserves. 

The L-Shaped Room, by Lynne Reid Banks

This novel marked the first of my Cheltenham Shortlist (the books which, had the Man Booker existed 50 years ago, would likely have been shortlisted), other than those I had read at an earlier stage. It is an interesting project to switch from reading the most prized, very-modern literature, to a novel whose style and subject would have been intensely modern in the 1960s. However, through its sheer 60s-ness, it also seems very dated.

The L-Shaped Room deals with the then-controversial subject of an unmarried woman in her late 20s falling pregnant, and the circumstances that occur after her standoffish and conservative father rejects her, and ejects her from the family home. Determined to lead a hermetic life in her new, cheap digs, Jane soon makes connections to new folk, expands her horizons and learns to accept herself, and her baby.

The book traverses some pretty controversial material for the time, but it is unable to completely shake the notion that pre-marital sex is 'wrong', that unmarried motherdom is 'wrong'. Jane may be pregnant, but it was a result of her first sexual experience (and an unenjoyable one, at that). Despite her father's rejection, Jane is constantly supported by other men in her life. Jane is moving towards being a symbol of independence through having a job, and being prepared to 'do it on her own', but this notion is undermined by the fact that the other strong women in the novel are either harridans, prostitutes or doomed to die alone.

While the novel toys with several moments of Jane's ability to choose her path, including abortion and raising a child alone, in the end it ties things up with happy coincidences and twee unions and reunions. The novel is an interesting read, if only for an insight into the mindset of 1960, but in the end felt a bit hollow and unsatisfying.