Customer Reviews

Rat Catching

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I really wish Azon had a picture of the book to display on their website, as it's quite attractive. It's a smallish, hardbound book with black and gold inlay on a deep, red cover with a silhouette of a prancing rat.

As other reviewers have stated, this is not really a book in the normal sense, one that you would sit down with in your reading chair and pour over, but more of a piece of conceptual art. What Mr. Glover has done is take a book originally published around 1896 about a study in rat catching and modify it with edits, artwork, and pictures. Many times the artwork and pictures will obscure some of the text, which can make reading of the book difficult, but it could be that this book really wasn't meant to be read, but just experienced as a visual form of expressionism.

The book ties in with a CD released by Crispin Hellion Glover called 'Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution. The Solution = Let It Be.' in that he reads passages from the book, with music by Barnes and Barnes.

An interesting book from an interesting artist, but I would be hard pressed to recommend this for everyone. It's not that I don't think people would understand it, even though I don't quite get it myself, but then that's part of the appeal to me. I don't have to understand something to enjoy it. By the way, the copy I got from Amazon has Glover's signature (I'm pretty sure it's his, as it ain't mine) near the front, in gaudy silver paint marker.

These books are all available on Glover's website for $30 each. These sellers jacking up the price to nearly triple what Glover himself sells his books for should be ashamed of themselves.

This is an excellant book by the genius Crispin Glover..... His mother actually runs the publishing company, volcanic eruptions, that also sells these books for $25, and for an additional $2 shipping, you can get these books signed by mister glover himself... i really do not know why people would buy from amazon when they could get their very own signed copy of three of mister glovers wonderful books. members.aol.com/vlcncrptns/VolcanicEruptions

Crispin Glover is the king of odd - let's face it! If you love him, Rat Catching is a must! He has taken some obscure book from centuries ago and ...well...reimagained it. What? Yes. He has the book and his own art and edits thrown in. I have never seen anything like this. Isn't that what out-there art is?

Glover takes Henry C. Barkley's book "Studies in the Art of Rat Catching" and cuts, pastes, manipulates it into another work in and of itself. The story starts out the same, but morphs into a hilarious and bizarre read that has to be experienced to be appreciated. Words cannot describe it. Glover edits out all references to ferrets, changes the ending substantially. When reading the original version, I found myself missing the crazy pictures, especially those of the Sand Pit Man. This is a must-read, and I would recommend getting the original Barkley book as well for purposes of comparison. It is available now in a reprint edition through Amazon.

This has to be one of the strangest concepts and executions I have ever born witness to. Actor Crispin Glover, best known as George McFly from Back To the Future, takes a book written in the late 1800's about catching vermin and randomly inserts several sketches and ink blots, as well as changing the text when he doesn't like the way things are going, before releasing this thin "book" under his own name. Long known as an eccentric(check out some of his recordings,)this certainly comes close to broaching the line of full blown insanity. Interesting only as a curious example of "outsider art," Rat Catching is best approached cautiously, and preferably while intoxicated.

This is more than a book. It's as if God Himself decided to reach-down from above and create a tome of enlightenment, one illustrated-page at a time. BRILLIANT. Buy two copies and leave one in yr local hotel's dresser-drawer. You'll be glad you did.

bril. a classic from one of the most discreetly multi-talented water-skiing cats of our times