Room

WARNING; If you have not read the book Room by Emma Donaghue then this post may contain spoilers for the story. Sorry about this, but they are necessary for what I have to say.

OK, I have, of course, recently finished reading this superb and disturbing book. It is disturbing because of the nature of the story, which starts with a young mother and her five year old child Jack who are locked in a room. It tracks the ways that they find to pass the time, it covers the astounding efforts that the mother goes to attempting to provide her son with something of a normal upbringing.

Then, half way through, they get out.

The mother is then back to normal life, something that she re-adjusts to easily and quickly, enjoying and reveling in her new freedom. Jack is rather more disturbed by the sudden revelation that Outside was as big, wide and strange as it is. As we read it, we see everything from our perspective - as residents of Outside - and yet we appreciate the Jacks perspective seeing things for the first time.

Actually, it provides an interesting and challenging perspective on our world, when you look at it from another set of eyes. Actually, a world with just two people and a ghost in it is far easier to make sense of than the huge, complex, problematic world that we actually live in.

And yet, as I read it, I was reminded of something else - the church, and its attitude to the world outside.

Sometimes, at least, people in the church behave rather like the child. Those whose perspective on the world is totally dominated by the church sometimes behave like that - blinking in confusion at the oddities in the real world; confused by the fact that the rest of the world do not share the church perspective on life; not really appreciating the freedom that the world provides, because there is a freedom in the small world of the room, and less confusion.

What is interesting is that Jack finally returns to the room, and sees it for what it is. He has been in the world outside for months, and realises that the Room, which he has been yearning for, is as small as his mother knew it was. Finally, he can say goodbye to the Room, and live his life in the real world, get on with the complexity and confusion that is the nature of reality.