a little bit of salt

So.  I don't know if any of you ever watch Man vs. Food (I don't either), but he has a tactic.  Oh, I've seen one episode where he ate about ten pounds of pancakes.  His tactic is this: when he's about halfway through and doesn't think he'll make it, he'll order a little bacon.  Something salty, just so his stomach doesn't reject so much pancake at once.  Well, I think my brain is about to start rejecting so much Toni Morrison at once.  So.  I need some bacon.

I have read a bunch of books since we last met, blogosphere.  A bunch.  In this bunch o' books was: The Graveyard Book, Room, Beloved (as I realized the day before yesterday I never actually read anything but the sparknotes... damn.  You know, I fool even myself sometimes), and a bunch of stories from The Chronicles of Harris Burdick.

But right now, I feel like talking about Room (because secretly, I have to write a paper about craft on it, so this will actually be sneaky productive).  Now, I loved this book.  Absolutely loved it.  True, the premise is a little disturbing, but when you've watched as much Law and Order: SVU as I have (and unless you've seen every episode, trust me, you haven't), things like that tend to be a little less rough to read about.  But even if you aren't used to reading about rape and women being kept in boxes for years on end, this book is a great read.

Okay, so let's be real.  I wrote this roundabouts two months ago, and then never posted it.  I would like to say that writing about a paper I needed to write made me stop and think, huh, maybe I should actually write the paper instead of writing about writing it.  But, more likely than not, that didn't happen. Probably I watched an episode of Modern Family or something, and then stayed up until three in the morning doing other more productive things.  I am still going to post it, however, because I think it's hilarious.  I also think I'm going to finish my thoughts about Room, for those of you who are interested, as I did end up writing a paper about it.

Things I liked:
I absolutely loved that it was told from the perspective of Jack--the five year old son of the mother and her rapist. Honestly, if it were not for this fact, I would not have been at all interested in reading it.  Indeed, it made the creepy premise a little easier to digest and far more intriguing than if his mother told it.  My creative writing advisor is always telling me that characters don't have to know shit, but the readers have to know everything.  In other words, the readers need to feel like they know more than the characters.  Obviously, Emma Donoghue does a great job with this, due to the simple fact that Jack knows only what is in Room.  For example, he sleeps in Wardrobe and counts the squeaks of mattress as he falls asleep.  While for him, this is like counting sheep, we as readers know full well that it is far more sinister and much more illegal.

Sorry that was a creepy example.  He also received a toy truck from Old Nick (as he refers to his mother's rapist), and cannot understand why his mother doesn't want him to play with it.  He just likes it because it's a toy, but we as readers know that his mother is uncomfortable with the idea that Jack might like Old Nick.  She doesn't want him to have a relationship with her rapist, but Jack can't understand that.  Especially because he thinks he can communicate with Dora the Explorer by writing on pieces of toilet paper and flushing it down the toilet.  It was also interesting to discover half way through the novel what he meant by "getting some."  Let me give you a hint: sometimes he gets some from the right, and sometimes he gets some from the left, and we as readers understand how... well. How socially unacceptable that is.

What I am iffy about:

It's hard to say where the climax of the novel is. It seems to me that it is when they escape from Old Nick, but that comes at about the halfway point.  The rest of the novel is falling action and focuses on their assimilation into normal life again.  While that is still interesting, it felt almost as if the book were uneven.  She also brings up a lot of issues in the second half of the novel, and I feel like they could have been delved into much farther.  Maybe what I'm saying is that they could have been two books--one about the escape, and then one about how they, and especially Jack, dealt with the real world after being imprisoned for so long.  It almost felt like it was too easy for Jack to accept the real world.  And yes, I realize I am contradicting myself a bit here, but you know, that's just how it goes.

All in all, I hope they don't make this into a movie.  Although I would probably still go see it, even though it would be creeptastic.

Stay tuned for post number two!

Go out and explore the amazing gobsmacking wondrous glorious gigantic world!  Don't enclose yourself in the room called Chicago or home or America.  Explore!  Adventure! Discover! Find the beauty in every little thing!

I once rapped "I Like Big Bucks and I Cannot Lie" for a seventh grade speech when running for treasurer.

-L.R. Ogden