Number 14 - Doctor Rat - William Kotzwinkle

 

First things first - that is an,,, erm... eye-catching cover and one of two reasons that I picked this book up.

The other reason is William Kotzwinkle as the writer.  I've read at least two of his other books many years ago. Considering the cover on this, you would have a hard time guessing what those might be.  ET the Extra Terrestrial and ET, the Book of the Green Planet.

I don't particularly remember anything about those books - a timeframe of 3 and a half decades will do that, but I do remember that I enjoyed them.

This book is quite a different beast to the E.T. novels.  That cover is quite a clear warning that this book is probably not going to be a pleasant read. I was still surprised at how visceral this book is though.  The contents are easily more disturbing than that picture.

This is the single angriest book I think I've ever read.  We're introduced in the first chapter to Dr Rat, an insane lab rat who provides the narration for nearly half the book as he faces down insurrection in the laboratory where he assists in the important research.

That research is described in vivid and gruesome detail. No paw nailed to a board to stop the animal moving is left undescribed. We're assured of the importance of knowing how a cat will react to its tail being shaved and moistened and ever increasing electrical currents fed through it, or clamps attached at increased pressures. The information gathered is invaluable.  That's actually one of the nicer experiments described in the book.   

Outside of the lab, we are treated to many more anthropomorphized creatures as the whole of animalkind starts to gather in enormous packs for reasons which become clear towards the end of the book. It is the call of the wild on a frequency all creatures can hear which is causing the uprising in the lab where Dr Rat must protect the research.

I have to assume that the experiments that Doctor Rat so gleefully describes are genuine research projects. That makes this book so much more disturbing. I can only hope that since this was written, that there is a more ethical approach to animal research.

I have never read a book quite like this. The searing sarcastic satire of the main narrative, the sheer vitriol towards mankind... the style of writing is varied, depending on what animal is talking at the time but always underpinned by a barely constrained anger. The denouement is rather devastating to say the least.

This is a book that requires a strong stomach.  There is an awful lot of animal cruelty in this book. But it has its purpose.  It's trying to shock people into action. It's not there just to be vile.  It's a call to arms to end licensed animal torture. It's a hugely depressing analysis of man's relationship with nature.

I loved it.  It's shocking, visceral and important.  

Number 1 - The Dogs - Robert Calder

 

Thought I'd start the year with something better than Slob - which pretty much meant any other book I own...

I went for this subtle looking affair. Not sure when or where I got it, but it's been on my TBR for a while. 

I will start by saying it's a marked improvement on Slob.  Robert Calder apparently knows how to string a few sentences together which is an instant win in comparison.

This is basically Jaws with a pack of dogs instead of a shark.  Small town America, university lecturer finds an abandoned puppy in a service station and takes it home.  A hundred miles away, An experimental lab breeding attack dogs realise they're missing a pup from a highly valued litter.  Through some time bending narrative techniques, we find out how it found its way to the town of Covington.

A couple of years later, after an attack that strikes too close to home for Bauer, our central protagonist, the dog runs off into the mountains and joins a pack. From this point on, anyone who crosses their path is not safe.

I'm not going to say this is a work of art or brilliant in any capacity.  It fills time in quite happily, but I'm guessing i won't remember much about this book in a few weeks time. the writing is ok for the most part, but the sex scenes are excruciating. 

He also has an issue with his characters on the various sub plots never intersecting. if you want a character who's only purpose to the story is to die a horrible death, you should spend one chapter at most on them. Otherwise, you're leading the reader down an unsatisfying path.  If a character appears in 4 separate chapters, he goddamn needs to contribute to the storyline more than just being ripped to shreds in his final appearance. He needs to interact with the other characters, not just wander about in his own little story entirely distanced from the everyone else before dying.

This is particularly true if you use this character for what, even in the 80s when this was written, would have been an intensely triggering sequence in the book for a lot of readers. See last paragraph for more detail on this.  If you want to avoid spoilers, don't read the last paragraph.

Side note - i love the rats by James Herbert (and many other early Jmaes herbert books).  I like to see shreddies in a book - characters who pop in for a chapter and die horribly. But they should only appear for the length of time it takes to get to know and like them. If they're not going to interact with your lead cast, don't give them too many pages. if they're only there to die in a set piece, get on with it and kill them.

There are threads left dangling which are fairly irritating.  Bauer's marriage subplot is left hanging. the student he's unprofessionally friendly with just kind of fades out of the narrative. His other relationship plot is somewhat cringeworthy in every aspect (and that's not the one with the really bad sex scenes).

 Overall this is a competently written little potboiler.  You don't really feel sympathy for any of the characters or the dogs but it's entertaining enough that I wanted to get to the end.

a 4 or 5 out of 10.  As the back cover says, this is more tightly written than Jaws.  it is indeed a better book than Jaws. but that's not difficult. 

Spoilers - This book does contain graphic descriptions of dogfighting, including an 9 page chapter describing a meeting, most of which is one fight in gruesome detail.  I spotted the irony in the description of the death of the human character in that scene and the description of the injuries described in that chapter, but it still seems to be a character and scene inserted for no reason except to be edgy.  That character could have been removed from the book except for his final two pages without impacting the plot in the slightest.