Doctor Rat

Dr. Rat, incarcerated in an animal experimentation facility at a university, has been driven insane by his treatment and is now a sycophant and cheerleader for the researchers, although they don’t realize it, since he’s a lab rat. He’s probably the only rat that quotes St. Thomas Aquinas: “Animals have no soul!”

As he rules over the lab, in his mind anyway, animals across the globe are gathering together in vast meetings, drawn, compelled by an unknown force. They are just waiting for man. When man does come, disaster results. In the lab, the animals are revolting too. Dr. Rat is the only one on the side of the researchers.

It’s easy to read Dr. Rat as a blistering polemic against the mistreatment of animals by man, mainly show more through now disgraced animal research. And maybe this book helped the cause, but it also is darkly hilarious and a wonderful story, both Kotzwinkle trademarks. show less

This book defies easy description by the plain simple fact that it transcends itself, over and over.

I mean, it starts out with Doctor Rat, a grant-subsidized scientist performing experiments on other animals in a way that seems like a diatribe against animal experimentation, but along with his poetry and his singing, he goes well beyond that kind of tale by out-doing the sheer evil of the Nazi scientists in WWII, becoming an anti-revolutionary bastion, and out Darth Vadering Darth Vader.

Did I laugh my head off at the point where he had his commentaries about human musicians pulling a David Attenborough on the whales while they waxed rhapsodic about how smart they were? Yes!

But when we get to a full revolution (remember, this book came show more out in 1977) of the animals versus the humans, with Doctor in his finest, most horrific mode, this book becomes a full world-war as tragic, scary, and bats**t insane as any of the best war documentaries. It's bloody, full of truly terrible biological warfare, and when whole battalions of elephants get... hey! Well... no spoilers... it's... brilliant. Disgusting. And amazing.

This satire goes WELL beyond its humble beginnings and skewers everything it touches.

Oh, and it makes a good case to stop castrating rats. Just imagine... if this one rat had not been castrated, then so much tragedy could have been avoided... show less

this is a very interesting book, showing us how shitty the human race can be and the author had a very unique way for us to view this. it was very clever of him to use Doc Rat as the main character. you are disgusted by him and then realize well he is taking all his view points from humans so if you are digusted by him, you are disgusted by the human race as well. i also enjoyed all the chapters from the points of view of animals from all over the world from bears, sloths, elephants, and turtles to caged animals at the zoo. it's a pretty gory/devastating look at animal cruelty and i would definitely recommend this book to other people.

Once again, here's a book that I might have enjoyed more if I'd read it when I first came across it years ago. Picking it up now, I found it off-putting. In part that's the point of the book, the main character being a rat in a lab that conducts seemingly pointless, always fatal experiments on its subjects. The other narrative thread in the book seems to point toward some kind of animal revolution or spiritual liberation. I found it difficult to enjoy the dark humor, because the cruelty of what was happening was too heavy for that, the result being that what was intended as ironic humor only made the early scenes more horrific. A drier telling of the lab's practices would have been less immediately alienating, although I realize that show more may in part have been the point.

In any event, I'm reporting on my impressions of the book's early chapters. I opted not to complete my experience with this book and left it on the bus for someone else to discover. Maybe it will resonate more with them than it did with me. show less

Very gruesome and heart wrenching in it's depictions of scientific animal testing; some from the point of view of the animals themselves. "Man is a bad animal" - Brion Gysin

Very clever & funny - includes a bit of wisdom, too. Recommended for fans of Vivian Vande Velde and maybe Sharon Shinn.

I love this book. The animals rise up against experimentation, and then Dr. Rat betrays them.