'3,096 Days' by Natascha Kampusch
Penguin, 2010
Reviewed by Austin Williams
The agonising and ultimately redemptive tale of the trapped Chilean miners
captured the world's hearts and headlines. At the time of writing, the 33rd
and final miner has just been released into euphoria, and into the spotlight,
from their underground entombment. Peter Stanford writing in The Independent
said that: "it is a happy ending, yes, but more than that, it is a victory,
on every level, for humanity". This was certainly a story to celebrate
in our bleak times. Speaking on Newsnight, ex-hostage John McCarthy said that
there was something universal about the events that have unfolded over the
previous two months. The rescue mission was one thing, but the morbid reality
of their captivity - with the possibility that there might be no release ("we
were waiting to die" said miner Richard Villaroel) - had also been pruriently
captivating.
As we celebrate "Los 33", our unholy fascination with underground
interment continues with the inquest at the Royal Courts of Justice into the
7th July bombings, replaying the terrifying ordeal of those trapped deep in
the London Underground. These are ordinary people in extraordinarily horrific
circumstances, with no visible means of escape.
Such intrigue also finds expression in fictionalised form. Emma Donoghue's
harrowing novel "Room", shortlisted for the ManBooker, tells the
story of a mother and daughter incarcerated in an underground chamber. Based
on the appalling case of Josef Fritzl (the Austrian father to a trapped and
sexually abused daughter), it conjures up the terrifying physical and psychological
predicament of forced seclusion and overwhelming domination, from which there
appears to be no escape. Rodrigo Cortés' movie "Buried" -
newly released (if you excuse the pun) - is a claustrophobic film about a
man who wakes up to find that he has been buried alive.
Whether there is a link between fiction and reality or not, all appear to
be stories of humans triumphing over events that conspire to shroud humanity
in darkness. Here people are confined in a potential death trap at the mercy
of forces beyond their control. Each presents us with a horrifyingly inescapable
prospect from which, in these versions, the 'victim' ultimately escapes (tragically,
we forget those that never made it from the cellars of Belgian paedophile
Marc Dutroux). The rescue is, after all, one heart-warming aspect to these
appallingly tragic tales.
In general, what we admire is the redemptive resolution. On behalf of the
rescuers, we are reminded of humanity's care, selflessness and fellow-feeling;
while on behalf of the trapped, we are reminded of the indomitable strength
of the human spirit. Though unimaginable adversity, people's resilience, humane
character, and lust for life shines through. These tales are about more than
just survival, they display a desire to rage against the dying of the light.
One book above all others captures this essence. Natascha Kampuch's "3,096
Days", is the story of her eight and a half years of captivity at the
hands of Wolfgang Priklopil. It is, on one hand a soul-wrenching story of
a ten-year old chid snatched off the streets and thrown into a dungeon. On
the other hand, it is a masterpiece of self-belief, determination and will
to live.
In terrifying scenes that defy the senses of the casual reader, one finds
oneself reading the book as a novel - blasé passages lull the reader
into a blinkered acceptance of what is going on. This, to a certain extent,
is the point: Kampuusch wants us to feel numbed - caught up in the narrative
- for this is her way of explaining her predicament and her necessity to make
a normality out of her utterly abnormal situation. Ever-present brutality
jolts us back to the reality of her woeful condition. Locked in a cell, in
pitch blackness (save for the relentlessly timed electric light) she has to
endure beatings, psychological torture, unbearable loneliness, and constant
monitoring from the early years of her childhood until she matures into an
adult.
In a fascinating thread that runs through the book, she equates her imprisonment
to her period of adolescence - drawing parallels between the timescale of
her captivity and the period when her autonomy as a child would have been
subjugated to the authority of adults in the real world. As such, she makes
a pledge to herself that she will escape when she is old enough. It is an
utterly remarkable rationalisation of intent. It also answers her critics
who still cannot believe that she would never have tried to escape even though
Priklopil sometimes took her on trips into the outside world.
Her life, she explains, had centred on Priklopil for her formative years
- and aside from the terror he held for her, he was also her only companion.
She says: "The person who had stolen me, who took my family and my identity
from me, became my family. I had no choice other than to accept him as such
and I learned to derive happiness from his affection and repress all that
was negative. Just like any child growing up in a dysfunctional family."
That said, she is wonderfully dismissive of claims that she is suffering from
Stockholm Syndrome - the medical explanation of hostages' sympathy for their
captor. Kampuch has been the victim of a terrible crime, but she refuses to
be "turned into a victim the second time".
"I had withstood all of Wolfgang Priklopil's psychological garbage and
dark fantasies and had not allowed myself to be broken. Now I was out in the
world, and that's exactly what people wanted to see: a broken person who would
never get back up again, who would always be dependent on help from others.
But the moment I refused to bear that mark of Cain for the rest of my life,
the mood turned."
This book is Kampuch's statement of intent. When she escaped, as promised,
in 2006 at the age of 18, there was a similar response to that that greeted
Los 33. But when she refused to play ball and be treated like "a broken
girl in need of help" she even received death threats. Unlike Los 33,
she says people resented the fact that she had freed herself - that the social
redemption that comes from a wide network of rescuers involved in a captive's
release, didn't exist in her case. She had freed herself. She suggests that
because of this, many people started to suggest that she couldn't possibly
have been held very forcibly against her will. Her story was challenged, her
accounts of suffering were dismissed and she was even seen to have been complicit
in her own capture. This book is a very touching, nuanced and determined two
fingers up to those rumour-mongers.
Rather than a self-indulgent cartharsis, it is a gauntlet slapped in the
face of her detractors. By so doing, Kampusch is determined to create a future
that will not be dictated by the accident - the tragedy - of her past.
While revolving around the vile and vicious actions of her abductor, Wolfgang
Priklopil; the central story reflects beautifully on the human spirit, and,
in particular, on Natascha Kampuch who remains generous in victory. As such,
it is a truly touching, well-written and delicately handled story. There are
moments of self-deprecating humour and one often has to remind oneself of
the nightmarish reality; although these lighter moments are the actual distractions
that Kampusch introduced into her brutal world to keep herself sane.
As Luis Urzua, the last man pulled out of the mine in Chile's Atacama desert
said "We had strength, we had spirit, we wanted to fight." Natascha
Kampusch was a terrified ten-year old when she was pushed underground. She
too, refused to be broken.
