Remember "The Silence OF The Lambs, loves?" I just ate that one up!!!!!!!!! Well, you may recall, one of its plot components involved the young adult daughter of a wealthy politician being held captive in some hellhole dungeon no one knew about, except her captor--an ugly, deranged serial killer with bad fashion sense, who called himself "Buffalo Bill." In the award-winning Jonathan Demme directed film version of this work, the politician, Senator Ruth Martin, was played by an aged Diane Baker, 27 years after her virtuoso turn as Girl-From-The-Wrong-Side-Of-The-Tracks Carol Harbin, in the Joan Crawford classic "Strait-Jacket." Which I still maintain would make an excellent vehicle for the Metropolitan Opera!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb was played by Ted Levine, and Brooke Smith played the captive daughter, Catherine Martin.
The problem with all this is that Catherine was played as a screaming, overweight beans n' franks lesbian, fresh from a night at Henrietta Hudson's, where she still could not get a date!!!!!! I still recall Jodie Foster, as Clarice Starling, of course, breaking through the lair, and hollering assurance to Catherine that help is on the way. But, instead of gratitude, we hear her yell back, "Hurry up, you bitch!" Or words to that effect.
Which certainly did not endear me to Catherine, a victim whom I would have said needed to be offed. But her captor was such an incompetent Divine wannabe, that these two almost deserved each other. Thank God for Hannibal Lector to liven things up. Few acts no sooner go South than a dumb serial killer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After reading and seeing 'Silence', not to mention the Harris novel I thought even better, "Red Dragon", I thought, "Been there, done that."
That is, until I recently read "Room" by Emma Donaghue.
I admit to picking it up with some trepidation, since it covers territory previously explored. And the language in how it does took some getting used to. But once adjustments have been made, "Room" spins a familiar tale in such a unique way that it becomes, disturbing, hopeful, and achingly poignant, all at the same time.
"Room" is one of the few novels I can recall since "Rebecca" whose heroine goes unnamed. Well, not completely; she is called "Ma" by her son, Jack. But, though Ma is the heroine, Jack is the star, because Donaghue chronicles the novel from the voice of Jack, giving us a five-year-old's skewered perception of his world, known only since birth as an 11' by 11' room. The reader's adult knowledge does the work for us that Jack's limitations of age, experience and perception cannot do.
We learn, through Jack and inference, that his mother, while still a 19- year- old college student, was abducted by an unknown captor, a bachelor loner in his late 40s' known only, according to Jack, by the moniker, "Old Nick." It is interesting that we never get to know this character as a person, but a series of body parts-- arms and legs that come through a door that only the captor knows the code to; furtive images that Jack sees when his mother hides him in Wardrobe during these visits, which amounts to she and Old Nick having sex, which, in her situation, amounts to rape every time.
At the end of this edition of the book is a series of Reading Group questions, one of which is "Why do you think the author chose not to tell 'Old Nick's' story?" Honey, I could answer that in a second--because we all know it!!!!!!!!!
Old Nick is described as a "bachelor loner." He is approximately in his late 40s, lives in a house he owns, but how long is questionable, because six months before he was laid off from his job, which we never learn about. But I can tell you this--he is a serial rapist, and killer. He has done this before, and, if the police dig deep and far enough, I am certain they will find the bodies of other young, abducted females. He was abused, possibly by his father, but in some way by his mother, for whom he has both an underlying hatred for women, AND a sexual desire for them, which makes him act out his impulses, via the abduction. This is the only way he can get a woman!!!!!!! Forget church groups and singles bars!!!!!!!! What is interesting is that Ma, after seven years, has not ended up like the others. As the writing tells, that has entirely to do with Jack, who, it becomes clear, is the child of Old Nick's series of rapes. Jack is also the barometer that enables Ma to survive her ordeal, on a day to basis, chronicled memorably in the first two sections of the book. Which are certainly the most harrowing. But do not overlook the second two parts, dealing with hope and redemption, and the price that comes with each.
Once I realized Donaghue had written "Slammerkin," I recalled how much I enjoyed that book. So it was no surprise I ultimately enjoyed "Room." But its poignancy gets under your skin in a way that simply being lurid would not. After finishing this, one may be ready for the more mellow pleasures, of, say, "Good Night, Moon."
But don't let me scare you off, darlings! Remember, it is only a book, so you can put it down and come back to it, at will.
Donaghue says she would like to see her book done as a movie. I don't think it is possible. There is not a child extraordinary enough to handle the role of Jack, and to make an actual five-year-old enact it would be criminal.
Even I am going to pass on this one, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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