Customer Reviews

King Rat

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I cannot believe the previous reviewer and I had the same book. King Rat stands up there with the classic Ivan Denisovich any way you read it...for the great story, or for its cynical look into men's souls. This is truly Clavell's best work, no silly Ninja antics, no inane super TaiPans or Anjin-Sans and their ridiculous MegaMistresses...just a book about real men in real hell, simply written and therefore all the more powerful.

King Rat is a young, cocky American civilian who finds himself drafted into the Army during WWII, and ends up a POW at the notorious Changi camp. But the King isn't an ordinary POW, he is the finagler par excellance. The savvy corporal trades whatever he gets and makes a profit however he can. And he holds sway over the corrupt POW officers because he deals for them on the black market, exchanging wedding rings and wrist watches for food -- with the King always getting his cut. Is the King wrong to take money or food as his price? The officers have been known to double deal themselves, giving King a fake Rolex to trade -- knowing full well the guard would punish King severely, maybe kill him, if the fraud was discovered. King isn't fooled. He just cheats right back, skimming a little of the top. The men of Changi are starving, their true blue, God Save the Queen officers are stealing their food and then playing bridge with clear consciences. Clavell has a great way of illustrating what most of us already know: the loudest braying patriot/hero/saviour is usually the most cowardly and venal. There is nobility, however, in the worst of us...and Clavell paints us a picture that is unforgettable. Is King the only truly uncorrupted soul at the camp? At least he's honest about his cheating. King shares his food willingly, uses his friends callously, and does his best to save those he can -- all things being equal. King's blatant disregard for moral fakery tarnishes him more than his actions. He befriends a young, innocent English pilot, all upper class bravado and stiff upper lip. At first, King seeks to use the pilot as an interpreter, but the friendship genuinely grows. King Rat looks in great detail at what men do what they have nothing left to lose. Some survive...one may even thrive. The rest cope and get by with whatever is inside them and a little luck. I hate to get all preachy here, because this is one hell of an exciting book. It's loaded with adventure. Although there is not enough explicit torture for the previous reviewer's tastes,I don't think most people would find it tame. This is not, however, a string 'em up and lash them book. It's about survival. Read it on any level you want, but by all means, read it.

James Clavell's "King Rat" is hands down the worst of his Asian saga. Only related to the other four by the main character's possession of a "gold ring, signet of the Clan Gordon" (italics) mentioned once on the seventh page. Any reader of Clavell would expect this to have some significance later but the thread never reemerges. Did the author forget about it, carried away by his clearly sophmoric adulation of his Hero? Or did he toss it in at his publisher's request in order to somehow justify this waste of print by weakly connecting it to his better works. And what is this shiftless down-and-out motherless drunkard's son doing with such a treasure anyway? Surely that would have made a more interesting book. Of course, the matural answer is that Clavell is telling his own story, what he lived through as a POW. He has, however, forgotten the first rule of freshman exposition: "Just because it happened to you, doesn't make it interesting." Certainly, there are traces of the Clavell magic--despite his always hackneyed prose, he is a master storyteller, but in this case the threads lead nowhere and peter out where a quick death would be more merciful. A large theme is built up around a secret radio, but when discovered not once but twice the Japanese commander who has been built up as a terrifying menace offers cigarettes to all involved. None are tortured,jailed or even questioned. It is as if he is uncertain as to whether he wants to write The Gulag Archipelago or Catch 22 and settle for Hogan's Heroes" (of TV sitcom fame). Changi makes Stalak 13 look the Hanoi Hilton. There is even a Corporal Schwarz-like Japanese guard who, like his sitcom counterpart has "no stomach for war" and comes close to saying "I know nothing-Nothing!" Clavell,who knows how to spin yarn, would be great on a campout and we cannot forget the majestic sweep of his four ?good? books, but, like the t-shirt says, "I spent nearly four years in a Japanese POW camp and all could come up with was this lame book. I was going to give the book away but instead chucked into the recycle bin.