proseamongstthorns's Reviews (946)

I completely understand why this book is featured on so many Must Read lists - it challenges genre norms, questions reality and criticises modern society. All the things that make it such a widely suggested book are what made it inaccessible and cumbersome for me.

Though engaging at parts, I found the disjointed timeline incredibly hard to follow. The characters were distant and remote, hardly the empathetic figures readers are used to. The complete alienation of the reader serves a purpose in how the morality of the novel and its purpose is presented.

Ultimately, this novel is well worth a read. Though I wouldn’t want to read it again. It is, to a point, engaging and provoking but it is not at all an easy read and takes as much energy as you are able to give to it.

At times, this novel was thoroughly engaging. It focuses on ideals of beauty and art, on time and gender in an original and provoking way. Though ultimately remains too unbelievable to really allow the reader to connect. It treads the line between realism and pure fantasy and this confusion within itself seems to result in an alienation of the reader. At no point was I fully invested in plot or character and this restricts the emotional responses any reader can experience. It was an interesting read and I don’t regret spending my time on it, however it became difficult at times to continue on and if it was not part of my university curriculum then I likely would have given up.

This book is a beautifully crafted, evocative piece. Comprising of three stories, each one becoming slightly more separated from the War it gives an interested perspective. We watch the war happening through a bystander, live through the immediate aftermath with the children of Nazi’s and who is likely a Jew and deal with the moral consequences two generations later. This final part, told by Micah, is the most interesting. It brings up questions such as who should feel guilty? Should knowledge of what our loved relatives did change how we feel about them? And when we learn the truth what should we do with that information? Ultimately, Dark Room doesn’t answer any of these questions - likely as there can be no correct answer. But underlying all of this is a subdued notion of when will the Germans ‘be allowed’ stop feeling guilty for what their ancestors have done.

Intensely confusing though hilarious. This play is one that is easier to understand when performed. The countless characters and love triangles become repetitive, but the play maintains its humour throughout.

This novel is a thoughtful commentary on memory and victimhood. The narrators own story and family history becomes intertwined with a girl who went missing. Her uncertain fate is speculated by the narrator throughout and ultimately no answers are ever presented.

More than just a book about the Holocaust, this novel focuses on memory and identification with the victims. People disappeared during this time, with no records to suggest what happened, and it is this that the novel explores so well.

An interesting and quick read. It is a thought-provoking novel which is well-worth taking a look at.