The Room [Paperback]

What the room is, is the mind of a very troubled and very concerned man. This man is concerned because he's confined in a cell with a possible heavy sentence awaiting (his trial pending). What we read throughout the whole book is only what goes on in this man's mind. There is no contact with anyone outside of this man, and all the dialogue to be found happens in his mind as well.

We are treated to a barrage of fantacizing as he imagines the tremendous measures of revenge he will take on those who caused him to be incarcerated, but we are also given a rather incoherent flow of thoughts and fantasies, much like we'd get if we could glimpse into anyone's mind. The uniqueness of this person's mind is that basically anything that breeds in there has the signs of brutality written all over it.

This is obviously not a book for the stomachically weak. Alone the fantasy with the dog training is one of the most brutal descriptions you'll come across in any book, and it spans across several pages. But this is by no means the only "scene" that will make for a gut-wrenching read. This guy has clearly got some issues, and as long as he remains locked up, the only he can work them out is in the confines of his own brain.

Selby delivers the goods in top form, the language is (as usual in his books) very strong and merciless, and while on the surface it looks like one fantasy has no connection oncesoever with the next, the grotesque imagery, and the pattern that keeps (admittedly) slowly developing is akin to a perverse attraction. But, as some will know, perverse attractions have always been succesful.

I don't know of many writers in Selby's league, and that in itself is an understatement actually. I also don't know many writers who'd be succesful even trying to copy him. His talent is multisided, but his strongest asset is how deep inside he gets in his characters, even when he's not speaking directly through their minds.

However, if this would be your first Selby book, i'd advise you not to start from here: it's a rather "difficult" one to start from. Start instead from "Last exit to Brooklyn" or "Requiem for a dream", both will "ease" you into the Selby-oid type of writting and the "Room" will become all the more accesible after that.

A dark, very dark book, that clearly qualifies as one of the gems in the domains of ultragloomy literature.

As for the book, it takes a strong will to read, but it's also like a car wreck that you just can't take your eyes off of. It is truly a harrowing read, the protagonist ceaselessly dragging us down with him into his endless cycle of neurotic despair and obsessive fantasies. There is something here about a damaged soul refusing to take on responsibility for itself... about refusing to internalize his locus of control. Everything is everybody else's fault, everything bad in his life happens to him, not because of him. The only responsibility the protagonist is concerned with is fantasizing about getting his pound of flesh, getting back at 'those who screwed him'. He obsesses over getting back at the cops, and the system, to a point that reality simply does not exist anymore, and when he does eventually have to deal with the outside world again, he is at a total loss as to how to deal with it.

It is a despairingly bleak novel, and if my review seems a bit disjointed and rambling, wait until you read Selby's book, as it's got nothin' on that. I recommend the book, but as one other reviewer said, only for those who are ready for it. If you're one of the happy shiney people out there, you probably won't get much out of it, but if on the other hand you're one who has at one point or another wondered why you just can't get a break, or why someone you've known just wouldn't 'buck up and get a grip', you should check out The Room.