Doctor Rat

by William Kotzwinkle

Book Overview

This World Fantasy Award winner in the vein of Animal Farm delves into a lab worthy of a mad Nazi scientist--but run by a brilliantly sadistic rodent. In the annals of American literature, there has... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380639904
• ISBN13: 9780380639908
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: Avon Books
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.28 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Madness as Education

If you read Dr. Rat you will never forget it -- ever. I read this many years ago and was reluctant to pick it up for a re-read because of the discomfort and horror it engendered, although I felt oddly compelled. A second reading did nothing to change my mind that a book that could make me that uncomfortable was worth a second look. (Those who believe in mankind's God-given right to dominion over the earth and its creatures should be forced to read Dr. Rat.) This is a strange, intense, often wildly funny, but serious book for people who relish chewy intellectual meat over sentimental feel-good pap.

Charlotte's Web this ain't

William Kotzwinkle's novel Dr. Rat combines a cautionary dash of Orwell's Animal Farm with the rancid horror of Sinclair's The Jungle to tell a savagely critical tale of humanity's mistreatment of the other animals sharing our world. Dr. Rat goes for the throat with appalling accuracy, clawing at the emotional core we try to protect with logic and reason. This novel forces us to look at the cruelly underside of animal experimentation, slaughtering houses and hunting. Told with a savage humor that does nothing to cushion the blow of confronting our own barbarism, Dr. Rat stands out as a masterpiece of recognition and rage.The title character is a laboratory rat long mad from running the maze. "Death is freedom," he shouts again and again.But while Dr. Rat gaily recites the gratuitous atrocities performed on his fellows by the Learned Professor and his graduate assistants -- "Nobody knows exactly what he's doing, or why. It is sufficient that each month we mention cancer and a new kind of plastic." -- the revolution brewing inside the lab mirrors a great gathering of every sort of animal in the outside world. The story flashes to the mind of a different creature for a chapter, either one suffering at the hand of man or one beginning the trek to the mustering, then flips back to Dr. Rat's lone stand against the rebelling research subjects.Dr. Rat ignites emotions that most of us are less than comfortable experiencing; all the more reason to read this book and to open your eyes.Even though this book is fiction, there is a lot of truth to it. This is a book I think everyone should read just so they know what happens in animal testing laboratories. Whether you're not aware or would rather turn away from the issue, animal testing is a cruel science experiment gone wrong.

Amazing-Insightful-Quite Brillaint

I am tempted to put Dr. Rat in my top ten all time books. Gruesome, witty, with one of literatures most memorable characters in my opinion. I am amazed how the author has such unusual anthromorphic insights into the mind of animals. Really, this book makes you cringe, laugh, and most of all think. Highly recommended. "Rat shocked, shocked, shocked...still comes back for more" please see "Animal Lab Routines"...vol4pp45-47

more than a story of animal experimentation!

I have read these other reviews. Yes, it is laughably funny; yes, it is frequently greusome. What I have failed to read about this book, at least so far, is what can be taken from it. On a basic level, it will make you think about animal conciousness and experimentation, animal cruelty, and blind procedure. True, this makes the story excellent by many standards. However, at the heart of the novel is a message of social and political awareness, and the comentary makes a profound statement on the ailing status of the world today. Kotzwinkle has created an AWESOME METAPHOR which stretches far beyond "a sad story about lab rats", and I am shocked other reviewers couldn't see that!

Just a GREAT Book

Watership Down smokes with Grateful Dead. Whacky and inspired. Read book in one sitting, laughing out loud.