August 26, 2006
The diary of Natascha Kampusch.
The Austrian girl held captive for 8 years, since the age of 10, kept a diary. Will she publish it? Imagine the rich offers she is hearing now and how strange it must be to have everyone lavishing attention on her after all these years of isolation. I wonder if, as she wrote those pages, she pictured a book that one day millions would read and if that made her feel she was not alone. The police officer who first interviewed her said she was amazed by her "intelligence, her vocabulary." Thinking of the girl's suffering, I feel heartened by the idea that she used her time -- deprived of schooling and stimulation -- to reach inside herself and discover a writer.
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22 comments:
ann-
When I was un-employed for quite awhile I also used my spare time to to look inside and find out what I got(springsteen).
I too share your views about 'Natascha.'
Use your time wisely and productively.
like learning to spell....
I have to hope that her decision to write a journal might go a way towards helping her with the unavoidable psychological harm she's going to be dealing with. To be able to articulate on paper might have kept her sense of self alive.
It would be trite to call this a happy ending, but her survival, her writing, and the psycho's decision to kill himself are all good things.
Just think: if she'd had hi-speed internet, she would have emerged much smarter than the Amerikan kid for whose 9-mo per year "education" we would have spent over $100,000 in the ten years! Drug-free, sober and abstinent, she also has the advantage of having skipped Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000 and (almost) Windows XP!
He is indeed, Dave; either that, or both you and I are completely lacking in sly, satirical wit about kidnapped, child sex slaves.
Yes Ann-If she is anything like you.
And btw, I was on vacation this past week (and since I don't routinely read the NYT) but do on vacation since my brother is a lib. But I was pleased to read your NYT oped. Nice job.
Yes, Elisabeth, you are sorely lacking in something. I hate to have to spell it out yet again to the still-confined mind, but here it is:
1. Sex is good. (Though I read she just did vacuuming.) Anyhow, it is an indication of your own sickness to focus on sex. If I were imprisoned for a long period as a teenager, either by a kidnaper or my own damn gummint, I would choose sex, if given a choice, along with sunlight, defecation, urination, baths, green veggies, Linux and a Mac. What is it that you have against sex that you don't have against the other necessities or delights? Would you feel better if, instead of sex, shé been forced to eat a Big Mac every day?
2. Being kidnaped would in many cases be better than being an Amerikan kid imprisoned by his own parents. (Do you know anything about what life with her mother was like?) Natascha was spared having to dress up, attend church, say the rosary and the pledge of allegiance.
Okay, thanks for clearing that up, Jim. Now I understand.
Jim's comments are always very deliberately inappropriate and extreme. read: boring by virtue of trying too hard.
boring by virtue of trying too hard.
heh heh. I like that.
Her asking her father about the toy car was heartbreaking. She must have thought about that car often and about how she would play with it if she ever made it home.
If she publishes her journal, I would certainly buy a copy. Did she have hope that she would someday escape or was she resigned to a grim fate? What did she think of her captor, and did her attitude toward him change over time? What did she think about to occupy her time?
Yes, Freeman, the part about the car touched me too. It must have symbolized a lot to her, and the fact that he kept it meant that he preserved her place in the family and that she could go back even to the point in her youth where she left off if she wanted.
Hunt and Althouse,
Your sentiments are touching, but they reveal more about your own insecurities and the editorializing of a clever reporter than they do about the realities of an Austrian teenager. If y'all had written the Diary of Anne Frank, nobody would be reading it!
Jim: WTF are you talking about?
Ann,
I'm talking about the PC talk-show bleeding-heart sentimenalism that bears more relation to your impressions of reality than to reality itself. Y'all must me members of some secret women's book club.
My theory: Jim is Quxxo.
Quxxo's last known appearance was as Jacques Cuze (a rather clever play on words, actually).
The name rendered Jacques in French has historically been rendered in English as James.
James = Jim.
Jim = Quxxo.
He's switched obsessions from psychiatry to full legal rights for minors, and has stopped the page length cut-and-paste, but he can't fool me.
Ann ~
I'm in Germany, and we are all horrified by this new development and we can't believe that we are aware of so much that is going on in the world, yet we know little about what is going on next door.
May this young girl find peace in the world she will encounter.
David said "The radical Islmaists think we should flush the Bill of Rights down the toilet, so we should."
I disagree.
Dave,
Jacques is the French rendering of Jacob, which in English (at least historically) has been rendered James.
You could take the time to learn both French and koine Greek. Or you could look it up in a Greek-English-French New Testament.
James 1:1 reads,
"James, a servant of God..."
"Iakobos theou ..."
"Jacques, serviteur de Dieu ..."
And the "Uh, no..." thing is generally considered pretty rude and patronizing. Especially when you don't know what you're talking about.
She's a brave young lady in more ways than one, and deserves better than to have people obsess about whether or not she was a sex slave and what things she had to do to survive.
BTW
IMO... Jim is a pedophile.
It seems incredible to compare it to having to put up with bad parenting, even when there are truly appalling parents.
The fascination is about the mixed elements of confinement, torture, (whether psychological or actual) and love.
I hope she manages to have her feelings, sanity, love and aliveness blossom in the wake of her ordeal.
I would like to read about "the period" from her own words.
Police has found out that "both" were using the man's bed! (from dna related substances found on the bed).
I bet,if the man didn't kill himself, she wouldnt sue him for any sexual abuse, but only for kidnapping.
And i am sure she would keep a regular contact with him.
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