Firmin

If there is one thing a literary education is good for it is to fill you with a sense of doom. There is nothing quite like a vivid imagination for sapping a person’s courage. I read the diary of Anne Frank, I become Anne Frank. As for others, they could feel plenty of terror, cringe in corners, sweat with fear, but as soon as the danger had passed it was as if it had never happened, and they trotted cheerfully on.

The "others", in this case, being our narrator's fellow citizens of a run-down neighbourhood in 1960s Boston. Born in the basement of a used bookstore (his crib lined with shredded pages of Finnegan's Wake), neglected by his alcoholic mother, bullied by his siblings, young Firmin has to feed and raise himself - the thirteenth show more child to a mother with twelve tits.

(Yeah, he's a rat.)

And so Firmin starts eating books. And then reading books. As the others grow strong and leave the basement to mate, scrounge for food and get run over in the street, Firmin stays behind, the smartest and loneliest rat in the world, ravenously reading his way through the entire published world of literature - from the Great Books to religious pamphlets, sci-fi novels to long-debunked medical theories and maps of the world. He teaches himself to read, teaches himself to critique, to discuss, to interpret... only that as a rat, he has no one to discuss it with. Other rats avoid him (as he them), and this being pre-computer age with its feather-touch keyboards, there is no way for him to communicate with humans; he can only squeak, and he's too weak to work a typewriter. As far as anyone can see, he's just a rat to be poisoned or stomped on. For a long time, his entire world is made up of books and the local cinema, which only shows old black-n-white Hollywood movies and cheap porn. And then something happens...

Name-dropping time: Firmin reads a bit like a tragicomic(er) Tales From Underground filtered through Fritz The Cat. I'd say it's what Auster was trying to do with Timbuktu, except it's much too sentimental (in a good way) to be Auster. But above all - and this reference might be a little obscure - I'm reminded of Hrabal's Too Loud A Solitude, which is eerily similar yet completely different. Two rat-infested basements, two outsiders-by-necessity who, pursued by the authorities, build their own world from books, two short novels about the power and lack of comfort offered by literature... Yet Savage has created something pretty unique: a narrator who could have been unbearably cute but instead is one of the most touching anti-heroes I've come across in a long time, a metafictional short sharp shock (148 pages), a very poignant tale of lonely people unable to connect to others (some rats, some humans), and a story that first cracks me up and then gradually turns the screws until we know that this can never end well. Firmin is just a rat, so he fits perfectly in that proverbial handbasket we're all in whether we realize it or not.

(And Hell, as Jean-Paul Sratre pointed out, is other rats.)

I'm sorry. That last piece was exactly the sort of pun that makes this sound like a joke. It's not. It's one of the most rewarding reads I've had all year, and I really hope more people will give it a shot. Firmin deserves that. show less

Imagine a sign above this review, GOODBYE ZIPPER.

Is this a cult classic? If not, why ever not?! Think Charlotte's Web for the "Adult Section." A book for book-lovers, for daydreamers, for the lusty and lonely who feel estranged from the world or even from themselves.

Firmin, a "lowlife" rat, is born in a used bookstore in Boston in the early 1960s. He goes from hungrily munching books for sustenance to hungrily reading them for another kind of sustenance. The wide-range of books he reads ignites his emotions and intelligence, but not surprisingly they also make him deeply unhappy with his rat lot in life. Because of all he's read, especially books by the "Big Ones" as Firmin calls major novelists, he craves connection into the human show more world around him, a mostly doomed desire.

In spite of the recurring disgusting aspects of rats (no need to elaborate on rodent infestations here), one feels tenderly toward clever, sad, and unique Firmin. Literary-ness infiltrates his life view. For example, he often gives fleeting moments a proposed book title, like "Lost in the World: Epistemology and Terror" and "Milk and Madness". Also, as he observes select humans, he imagines succinct signs over them much like signs over doors or over bookshop book sections, like "FREAK" and "UNNATURAL GENIUS." His growing and continual imagination become more elaborate, blending and softening life's harsh experiences. All become his (our) real experiences.

This book was a whim for me, somewhat outside my norm. But author Sam Savage walked a fantasy tight-rope so perfectly that I never waivered. He believably gave a rat the ability to read and to think. Yet the world remained very real, a world with which his protagonist -- a reading, thinking rat that never stops being a rat -- must navigate.

Yep, four stars. I really liked this book. show less

Firmin kommt als 13. Rattenjunges in einer Buchhandlung zur Welt, im Vergleich zu seinen Geschwistern körperlich eher zurückgeblieben und wenig durchsetzungsstark. Statt sich mit ihnen ums Fressen zu streiten, frisst er sich im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes durch die Bücher um ihn herum. Und stellt zu seiner eigenen Verwunderung eines Tages fest, dass er lesen kann. Um sich die geistige Nahrung zu erhalten, hält er sich beim Fressen nunmehr an die Ränder und Einbände - und verschlingt zusätzlich den Inhalt mit den Augen in großen Mengen. Durch all das Wissen das er auf diese Art und Weise ansammelt, fühlt er sich den Menschen immer mehr verbunden und wünscht sich nichts sehnlicher als von ihnen als einer der ihren anerkannt zu show more werden. Firmin versucht mit dem Buchhändler in Kontakt zu treten, doch all seine Bemühungen scheitern: Zeichensprache, Schreibmaschine, Blickkontakt (Computer gab es noch nicht). Als er in einer gefährlichen Situation von einem anderen Menschen gerettet und 'adoptiert' wird, hat Firmin zwar den gewünschten direkten Kontakt, doch die Anerkennung als Wesensgleicher bleibt ihm weiterhin versagt. Er arrangiert sich mit der Situation, spielt das putzige Haustier und erträumt sich seine Welt...
Zu Beginn ist man verwundert: Der Sprachstil ist für eine Ratte doch sehr gewählt, wenn nicht sogar gelegentlich etwas geschraubt. Doch bald wird einem bewusst, wieviel Firmin in seinem doch recht kurzen Leben bereits gelesen hat. Und dass er mit diesem Wissen und der sich angeeigneten Bildung so manchen Menschen weit übertrifft. Dennoch: Eine Ratte ist eine Ratte ist eine Ratte.
Eine moderne Fabel die mit etwas Nachdenken klar macht, wie wenig äußere Attribute doch etwas über das aussagen, was dahinter steckt. Und das alles ohne moralischen Zeigefinger. Lesenswert! show less

"It was soon painfully clear that when he looked at me what he mainly saw was a cute animal, clownish and a little stupid, something like a very small dog with buckteeth. He had no inkling of my true character, that I was in fact grossly cynical, moderately vicious, and a melancholy genius, or that I had read more books than he had."

I loved this book, because this was a book for me. It's for people who love books -- sci-fi paperbacks as well as the classics -- but are still somewhat cynical about their importance. Or maybe, cynical about their own importance, and love books because they're not important either. It's about the inherent sadness of life, and the incredible joy that can be had in remembering the quietly good moments and the show more times that were good even if it wasn't a specific moment at all. It's about being an outsider. It's about a rat who seems like he could be a real rat, that if you could watch him you might not notice anything out of the ordinary. It's just really clever and quiet and good, without ever getting too caught up in its own cleverness. Recommended for everyone who wants "I don't know... something different to read." show less

Six-word review: Among oddball novels, odder than most.

Extended review:

I kind of hate giving only three and a half stars to this one. It's in a class of its own, like the 10-point letters in Scrabble, Q and Z, and in that class it gets top marks. Quirky. Zany. And also quiet. And, if I may say so, zoophilous.

Although I know I haven't read a book like this before, there's still an uncanny sense of familiarity, a kind of deja vu, a feeling of recognition at some elemental level--as if I'd been there before in a half-remembered dream, in the walls and ceilings of Pembroke Books, in the alleys and gutters of old Scollay Square.

Or maybe it's only that Firmin, the rodent protagonist, feels like no stranger, but rather, someone I might see show more in, say, a bookstore. Or the living room. Or the mirror.

Indeed, I found it all too easy to identify with this outsider, this misfit, this onlooker who doesn't belong among his own kind or any other kind; who adores the unattainable, who aches to be what he can never become, who knows his own truth and longs not to know it--namely, that he is a rat. A rat blessed with the ability to read and to find a home among the books and lose himself in literature, and also cursed to yearn hopelessly for a like-minded companion; a rat with a rat's unlovely face and unmelodious voice and the ability to scrounge a livelihood out of whatever marginally nutritious substance presents itself. And that includes paper. Firmin devours books.

Firmin would probably scoff at the idea of calling his story "poignant" or "touching." He wants us to know that despite his occasional ingratiating antics, he is not cute and cuddly but a fierce animal. He is unashamed of his passions, but he does not succumb to sentimentality. His teeth are sharp.

That feeling of resonance sent me scrambling, or maybe I should say scurrying, for parallels in the world of art. I felt sure there must be some; the sense that I'd followed other explorers of this emotional and psychological territory was just too strong. The soaring imagination, the unrequited love, the self-deprecation, the solitude. The perverse beauty of the grotesque. I thought of Toulouse-Lautrec painting prostitutes; of Van Gogh layering his madness onto the canvas; of Leonardo and Bosch and every other artist who relished the everyday bizarre.

I thought, too, of Cyrano de Bergerac, whose disfiguration masks a great soul; and of Beauty and the Beast, the Ugly Duckling, and the Elephant Man, cultural icons whose messages speak to the hidden self that lacks the power or the courage to show itself. I thought of the angels and demons of Rilke. As I step back and consider character after character who chafes at the limitations of his or her life, I realize: I've read a thousand books like Firmin. Firmin is Everyman, is he not? Even if not Everyrat.

But Firmin would never take himself so seriously. He mocks his own grandiose notions, never forgetting for long what he is and where he came from. He's a rat. He has a life in books. Readers like us can understand. show less

Firmin may have just nosed (hehe, get it? it's about a rat...) it's way into contention for one of my top 5 books. It's seriously good. Delicious (you really have to read this book)! Even when I was almost in tears, I was loving every second. I can't believe this is a debut novel. I think I love you, Sam Savage. It probably helps that I've had rats as pets, since I know how affectionate they can be, but I think anyone who has ever felt like an outsider (and even some who haven't) should be able to sink their teeth into this book (ok, I can't stop myself).

Years ago, my brother wanted a rat, so my mom rescued (bought for $2) one from the feeder tank at the reptile store. We named her Daisy. We had only had her 1 week when she got really show more sick. My mom took a half-dead rat to the vet to see what he thought. He ended up putting her on an IV drip that cost $50.

My mom and I were laying in the floor, with Daisy in a shoe box, the IV in her tiny little front leg. She could barely move and she just sat there staring at me for the longest time. And then, very very slowly, she climbed out of the box, up onto my shoulder, and nestled in behind my ear under my hair. My mom and I both just started bawling. It was one of the sweetest, saddest moments of my pet owning life.

We had Daisy for 2 1/2 years, which is quite a long life for a rat, until she got cancer. She was a cherished member of our family by then, and my dad wasn't even mad when we spent another $50 to have her put to sleep. He even buried her next to his cherished dog Jake.

Firmin, for me, was a total love story for Daisy. Having had her in my life made it all the more beautiful, especially the last few chapters. And I'm not ashamed to say that I was crying through parts of it. I hope you love the book, even if you don't like rats. show less

Graziosa favola che parla di un ratto e di come lo stesso sia diventato un appassionato della lettura, che vorrebbe essere una metafora della condizione del lettore in mezzo a una umanità che della lettura pare non sapere più che cosa farsene.
L'inizio è molto carino, poi il romanzo si disperde un po', e il ratto diventa troppo umano, e si commisera troppo, per essere veramente simaptico.
La scrittura è curata e piacevole, e fa si che il voto sia un po' più alto di quello che competerebbe alla storia in quanto tale.