King Rat

Okay. King Rat's pretty gross. That garbage-eating scene was not a walk-in-the-park to read. And from what I've heard, I haven't even made it to the nastiest parts. Granted though, it definitely was interesting for a couple different reasons. Overall though, King Rat wasn't my favorite read so far.

I had very mixed feelings about reading China Mieville's novel. On one hand, the writing was incredibly interesting. There was an urgency to it, and a disjointedness about the thoughts, speech, and actions of each character in a way that I'd never seen before. The mood made everything feel dark, mysterious, cryptic, and gritty. The language itself also felt very fast paced. Yet because of this, often it was hard pretty hard to follow. The chapters that described the Rat King pulling Saul down alleyways, through windows, and over and across the eaves of houses were confusing without knowing the streets of London themselves. That, and British slang really is a whole other animal.

The strange concept of Saul's "ratness," which wasn't defined by the natural laws of science at all was a little tricky to accept. Eating garbage and liking it? Being able to fit through small spaces and go unnoticed? I had a hard time believing the realistic aspects of this world because there seemed to be very few boundaries to ground the story in reality. Also, the idea of the Piper, and King Rat, and all the different titles were a little bit hard to latch onto. With almost archetypal titles like the Rat King and the Piper, it felt like an odd and twisted dark fable, something I wasn't super fond of.  It felt a bit too cheesy, and didn't seem to mesh properly with the real world. Yet the introduction of the early dubstep was something I found interesting---I feel that there's been few books that I've read that have tried to describe sound or music that intensely. I liked the language used to describe the different beats, and the rising swells of the music.

In any case, again, King Rat was not really one of my favorites. Interesting, definitely---But I'm just fine without my share of garbage-munching. :)