Reading 'Room' by Emma Donoghue
If I'm ever to make any serious attempt at writing me I need to know my genres. This is bastarding hard, considering my genres are ritual abuse survivor stories and lets face it the fucking tabloids. Not just all the cozy euphemistic long words of academia. I'm going to have to face up to all those books with the fake handwriting titles and cover shots of kids pulling the same poses I had to. What's the difference of someone taking a photograph of kid crying in order to distress the viewer and doing it to gratify? Part of the same system that uses children as a focus for our difficult emotions. Of course the cover shot kids will be treated differently, but how do they know? How do they know they are not photographing a kid who has made those same expressions but with even less clothes? How would they kid know the difference?
I never did and still don't. People who photographed anything professionally, might and did photograph me. It was pretty viral in some areas of some industries.
Any way there is no disturbing sepia photos of kids on Room thankfully. Any adult portrayal of children makes me uncomfortable but I am aware there is most likely partly my oversensitivity to the exploitation of other peoples misery for easy money. So I'm giving it a go. It is pretty compelling but to be honest the kid does start to grate after a while. It's written completely, so far anyway from his 5 year old perspective; in his voice, through his mind and that makes long reading hours pretty tricky. This annoys me a bit because I do like to get to the end of novels. I like to read for hours or not at all partly because my memory is rubbish and I will forget the beginning by the time I get to the end. Another reason is that if I can be bothered to read it means I am probably a bit overly emotionally involved in the subjects and I want it to be over so I can move on. Maybe the shorter reading sessions are working better in terms of not getting overly involved in a positive sense, I don't think it is going to give me any nightmares. The mother is too strong for me at times which stops the novel from being as challenging as I think it should be. The story is about how in some ways all the little boys fantasies have come true by being locked in with his amazing mum, still breastfeeding as any thing else so far.
I am lovely the feeling provided by their release though. Being stuck in a room like that, symbolic of the mind frames many people are trapped in. Especially me with the nature of my 'work' and 'gifts', 'privileges' and 'duties' in the scene. The mind sets I had to throw and weld together had to be strong and stepping out of them feels a bit like feeling real day light for the first time.
I never did and still don't. People who photographed anything professionally, might and did photograph me. It was pretty viral in some areas of some industries.
Any way there is no disturbing sepia photos of kids on Room thankfully. Any adult portrayal of children makes me uncomfortable but I am aware there is most likely partly my oversensitivity to the exploitation of other peoples misery for easy money. So I'm giving it a go. It is pretty compelling but to be honest the kid does start to grate after a while. It's written completely, so far anyway from his 5 year old perspective; in his voice, through his mind and that makes long reading hours pretty tricky. This annoys me a bit because I do like to get to the end of novels. I like to read for hours or not at all partly because my memory is rubbish and I will forget the beginning by the time I get to the end. Another reason is that if I can be bothered to read it means I am probably a bit overly emotionally involved in the subjects and I want it to be over so I can move on. Maybe the shorter reading sessions are working better in terms of not getting overly involved in a positive sense, I don't think it is going to give me any nightmares. The mother is too strong for me at times which stops the novel from being as challenging as I think it should be. The story is about how in some ways all the little boys fantasies have come true by being locked in with his amazing mum, still breastfeeding as any thing else so far.
I am lovely the feeling provided by their release though. Being stuck in a room like that, symbolic of the mind frames many people are trapped in. Especially me with the nature of my 'work' and 'gifts', 'privileges' and 'duties' in the scene. The mind sets I had to throw and weld together had to be strong and stepping out of them feels a bit like feeling real day light for the first time.
