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Rats: Observations on the HistoryHabitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan
curiousreader's review
3.0
Robert Sullivan's "Rats: Observations of the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants" is an examination of rats and their interaction with humans - or the other way around. He spends a year studying one particular alley's rat population, speaks with rat experts of all kinds - people who have studied the species, and people who work to 'control' it; searches through writing on rats and their connection to things like the plague. While this book is labeled as natural history, I personally feel it's better called a history - of big city life in general, as well as a history of New York City in particular. If you're interested in the city, you might find more to love and engage with in 'Rats' than I did.
Robert Sullivan writes in a chatty, casual voice which makes for a rather easily digested nonfiction read. In between more serious discussion on plague, increasing rat populations and rat problems as linked with bad housing situation, there's a humorous tone in Sullivan's honest reaction to the species, rats' likeness to humans, or even the interesting facts of rats themselves. The first fifty pages or so are mostly focused on rats as a normal natural history - their food, living, reproduction, and factors that have shaped how we view them. Then there's quite a large part of the book given to discussion surrounding the control of the species through talk with exterminators or pest control operators, trapping or chasing rats, basically dealing with rats through different means - how to get rid of rats, how to minimize their existence, and/or how to kill them. While I wouldn't say this part is less important than the first, I felt the book was too heavily focused on this latter discussion for my taste. I felt there was a missed opportunity of an examination of human's responsibility in the whole rat situation and really - adding a critical discussion of the garbage disposal in big cities like New York would've made this book better, and in my opinion, more valuable. Sullivan repeatedly touches on the garbage problem without really going into any depth, while there's chapter after chapter of the control of rats through poison, traps, etc.
I had a few quibbles too with the way Sullivan writes, which basically bottles down to: too much extra information that bears no real importance to the main topic at hand. It's things like giving background information on a rat expert - where he went to school, what his family structure was like, or what kind of clothes an exterminator was wearing. If these details were directly linked to points in the book that would've been a different matter, for example if the clothes were of a specific kind to - let's say, camouflage when trapping a rat - that would've been fine. At least I couldn't see these kind of details' relevance to the book as a whole, and I found it mostly muddled the many interesting facts it actually did contain. It seemed mostly like such details were given as a tribute to each person who has been valuable within the area of rats studies and work - and while I can understand how an author would want to pay tribute to important actors within the area of study, it doesn't do much for the reader.
On the whole this was a fun and interesting book with rats at its center but is also in many ways a history of New York City. If that sounds like something you're interested in, it might be worth checking out.
Robert Sullivan writes in a chatty, casual voice which makes for a rather easily digested nonfiction read. In between more serious discussion on plague, increasing rat populations and rat problems as linked with bad housing situation, there's a humorous tone in Sullivan's honest reaction to the species, rats' likeness to humans, or even the interesting facts of rats themselves. The first fifty pages or so are mostly focused on rats as a normal natural history - their food, living, reproduction, and factors that have shaped how we view them. Then there's quite a large part of the book given to discussion surrounding the control of the species through talk with exterminators or pest control operators, trapping or chasing rats, basically dealing with rats through different means - how to get rid of rats, how to minimize their existence, and/or how to kill them. While I wouldn't say this part is less important than the first, I felt the book was too heavily focused on this latter discussion for my taste. I felt there was a missed opportunity of an examination of human's responsibility in the whole rat situation and really - adding a critical discussion of the garbage disposal in big cities like New York would've made this book better, and in my opinion, more valuable. Sullivan repeatedly touches on the garbage problem without really going into any depth, while there's chapter after chapter of the control of rats through poison, traps, etc.
I had a few quibbles too with the way Sullivan writes, which basically bottles down to: too much extra information that bears no real importance to the main topic at hand. It's things like giving background information on a rat expert - where he went to school, what his family structure was like, or what kind of clothes an exterminator was wearing. If these details were directly linked to points in the book that would've been a different matter, for example if the clothes were of a specific kind to - let's say, camouflage when trapping a rat - that would've been fine. At least I couldn't see these kind of details' relevance to the book as a whole, and I found it mostly muddled the many interesting facts it actually did contain. It seemed mostly like such details were given as a tribute to each person who has been valuable within the area of rats studies and work - and while I can understand how an author would want to pay tribute to important actors within the area of study, it doesn't do much for the reader.
On the whole this was a fun and interesting book with rats at its center but is also in many ways a history of New York City. If that sounds like something you're interested in, it might be worth checking out.
hilaritas's review
1.0
I found this book both frustrating and pointless. While there were a handful of interesting factoids and anecdotes, I learned next to nothing about rats. About half of the book is him saying "I was getting ready to go look at rats" and the last half is his extremely superficial observations of rats in an alley. (They like to eat! They run along walls! He can maybe, MAYBE, recognize a single rat after months and months of observations!) There is a weird part where he gives up on any effort at narrative consistency and just includes a bullet point list of things he did once in Milwaukee. The flow is really disjointed. The worst part of this book, though, is the insufferably pretentious writing style of the author, which periodically builds to a fever pitch. At one point he offers what is purportedly excerpts from the diary he kept while sitting in the alley. Within one hour, he has quoted Confucius, Milton, and a Latin aphorism, all to make weak jokes about rats. It took a supreme effort of will to read past that section without my head exploding in incredulity. It's pretty obvious that the author has some weird inferiority complex regarding writing about such a "low" topic and that he's compensating with overblown efforts to show he's "above" his subject. There are even cringeworthy sections where he describes himself justifying writing the book to people at cocktail parties. Dude, if you don't think your subject is inherently worthy, DON'T WRITE THE BOOK! The rats deserve better. The cover is the best part about this book, so drink that in and then move on.
elwoodicious's review
4.0
A quick and pleasant read, contrary to how rats make me feel.
This was an unexpectedly delightful read. When I picked up the book I had been expecting a micro-history that was tightly focused on rats with a clinical detachment. What I found instead was a personal narrative that spiraled out from the authors contemplations while observing a colony of rats in a particular alley.
The story folds in personalities related to rats in some manner, exterminators and the homeless, both contemporary and historical (by far I love his friends the poet and artist who accompany him on some of his ratting forays). In and around this, the story builds a painting of New York that is impressionist in nature: broad strokes that accentuate the individual bristle.
A quick and pleasant read, contrary to how rats make me feel.
This was an unexpectedly delightful read. When I picked up the book I had been expecting a micro-history that was tightly focused on rats with a clinical detachment. What I found instead was a personal narrative that spiraled out from the authors contemplations while observing a colony of rats in a particular alley.
The story folds in personalities related to rats in some manner, exterminators and the homeless, both contemporary and historical (by far I love his friends the poet and artist who accompany him on some of his ratting forays). In and around this, the story builds a painting of New York that is impressionist in nature: broad strokes that accentuate the individual bristle.
A quick and pleasant read, contrary to how rats make me feel.
bookishheather's review
4.0
A sociological study of urban wildlife–possibly even the first! It wasn't a difficult or overly-academic read, but I still learned a lot about one of the creatures I dreaded seeing most when I was in New York (the first being the cockroach).
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