[Nesacat]

I just finished King Rat this morning and I've mixed feelings about the tale. I've always had a fondness for the tale of the Piper.

The descriptions of London's underbelly was amazing and very vivid. I could see myself slipping through the alleys and walking across the rooftops. The description of the food they ate from the garbage bins and the slow change in Saul as he discovers himself and comes into his own was very well done.

The same with the description of King Rat himself. I could actually see him standing in the shadows of my room with his blurred outlines and dirt-encrusted clothes and to a large extent I greatly sympathised with him though I found myself hating the way in which he went about trying to regain his kingdom. But it did ring true especially in this day and age perhaps and was all the more hard-hitting and believable for that.

The characters of Loplop and Anansi were not as well utilised or developed and could have effectively been removed I thought along with some of the text which seemed superfluous and took away from the gritty, edgy feel of the story.

Aside from the descriptions I liked the way he used music and the fact that in the end there is a realisation that a person is not merely the sum of two parts, so Saul was not merely the combination of a human and a rat. he was his own person and therefore unique and more than just 1+1.