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esqfanny 's review for:
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
by Robert C. O'Brien
A beautiful, delicate book.
O'Brien smoothly spins the story of a widowed mouse and a growing community of rats into a tale full of bravery, discovery and new beginnings. I feel in my heart this is a very special book for children, for it portrays without pretensions the blossoming of a new civilization, itself a product of our own fascination with genesis and change. The way it is portrayed could be perfectly seen as a metaphor of the oppressed and all the groups who see their identities and futures forged by the powerful and mighty. And still these groups thrive, as one of the rats leaders states, on conflict. It is on conflict where the protagonists show their bravery and a tremendous will to be free, to be happy. For children, a protagonist like Mrs. Frisby is an excellent example of how fear is not a trait to be purged of our system, but controlled and used to find a solution to our problems. She is not fearless, but her love for the ones she cares about gives her the strength to fight back.
The author leaves enough space for speculation, and though it may be frustrating for some to not know what happened to that special rat colony by the end of the novel, this decision increases its nuance. For certainty is never a given in life, and most of the time we are only consoled by our memories and the limited perspective our experience can provide to us. The book is, after all, focused on Mrs. Frisby's point of view, so it would be dismissive of its stylistic decisions to suddenly provide on the epilogue a full disclosure, just for the sake of pleasing our ceaseless love for univocal endings.
And also, in a way, O'Brien seems to end the story of the rats as if preventing us to further intrude in a very personal affair. We may be responsible for their evolution, but we certainly have no right to intrude on their future. Their woes and glories are theirs, never mind their past, and we as spectators should reflect about that.
O'Brien smoothly spins the story of a widowed mouse and a growing community of rats into a tale full of bravery, discovery and new beginnings. I feel in my heart this is a very special book for children, for it portrays without pretensions the blossoming of a new civilization, itself a product of our own fascination with genesis and change. The way it is portrayed could be perfectly seen as a metaphor of the oppressed and all the groups who see their identities and futures forged by the powerful and mighty. And still these groups thrive, as one of the rats leaders states, on conflict. It is on conflict where the protagonists show their bravery and a tremendous will to be free, to be happy. For children, a protagonist like Mrs. Frisby is an excellent example of how fear is not a trait to be purged of our system, but controlled and used to find a solution to our problems. She is not fearless, but her love for the ones she cares about gives her the strength to fight back.
The author leaves enough space for speculation, and though it may be frustrating for some to not know what happened to that special rat colony by the end of the novel, this decision increases its nuance. For certainty is never a given in life, and most of the time we are only consoled by our memories and the limited perspective our experience can provide to us. The book is, after all, focused on Mrs. Frisby's point of view, so it would be dismissive of its stylistic decisions to suddenly provide on the epilogue a full disclosure, just for the sake of pleasing our ceaseless love for univocal endings.
And also, in a way, O'Brien seems to end the story of the rats as if preventing us to further intrude in a very personal affair. We may be responsible for their evolution, but we certainly have no right to intrude on their future. Their woes and glories are theirs, never mind their past, and we as spectators should reflect about that.