Rating: 
Summary: Dark, darker, Selby...
Review: While this may not be -arguably- Selby's best book, one has to remember what his other books are mostly like: masterpieces. The "Room" only falls short because its "trick" might wear thin eventually, but this is by no means a certainty and it really depends on whether you allow it to wear thin. 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.
| 
