4 Stars
Pros: Easy to read and follow, Willard's moral collapse was not surprising/Unnerving in its easy to understand chain of events, it seems that anyone can snap if put under enough pressure/Willard himself was a timid, unassuming man and someone that I think anyone can easily relate to, which makes his descent into criminality all the more stomach churning.
Cons: The ending was very abrupt but at the same time that it was startling and brutal, it was a good ending/Willard's undeniably misogynistic view of the world, how his romantic interest has no other name than "the girl."
Full Review:
We are introduced to Willard, an unassuming, timid, quiet man who lives with his Mother, who informs him that there are Rats in the Garden and his mother expects him to take care of the problem. He is reluctant at first, but then devises a way to kill the rats and solve the problem. But when it comes down to it, he finds he doesn't have the stomach for such a brutal act and instead, saves the mother rat and her young, thus starting a chain of events that will change his life dramatically.
At first he is shy, secretive, stuck at a business where his Father was once the owner but whom has since passed and they keep him on seemingly out of pity. He hates his boss, doesn't seem to connect with his co-workers and his Mother is an overbearing, all consuming, nagging presence. He finds no peace at work or home. The only peace he finds is when he goes up to the shed and spends time with the rats, especially one who seems especially bright that he has named Socrates.
As rats will do, they multiply, frighteningly so, and soon he has so many rats in his shed that he's afraid his Mother will find out and call pest control on him. But that's all taken care of when his Mother, who is old already, dies and he can easily move the rats to the house now, so that they can commandeer the basement. He spends his nights training the rats, separating the wheat from the chaff, the clever from the dull and in a way, building himself an army of rodents.
His master plan is to get back at his Boss, Jones, by having his legion of Rats chew away at Jones' car tires and thus flattening them. He is successful in this attempt but it does not have the effect that he thought it would. Imagining his boss coming into the office, livid and outraged at the damage to his property, Jones instead never even mentions it. Slightly put off at the lack of a reaction, nonetheless Willard continues with his training of his rats.
One night, in act act of desperation, since he has no money and his mother is dead, he uses the rats as a means to an end. He knows that if he doesn't get food soon, he will starve, as will his pets, and so he takes them to a Grocer up the street and lets them into the pantry through an open window. While the rats are busy eating, the Grocer enters the pantry and after seeing the multitude of vermin, abandons the store, leaving the door wide open. This is too tempting an opportunity for Willard to pass up, so he steps inside the shop and what is on the counter but piles upon piles of loose bills. So he steals the money and thus, begins his more criminal activities.
As news of what happened at the Grocer spreads in the local newspaper, Willard finds the populace in fear and awe of what they've dubbed "the Ratman." A deformed, beastly creature with the head of a rat who robs unsuspecting innocent bystanders and who has an army of rats at his call. Which in a way, is true, this is what Willard has and does. But it is not his endgame. That comes into play when something terrible happens to Socrates and he begins to plot revenge.
The story itself was intriguing, albeit unsettling. The idea of a man training multitudes of rats to do his bidding was not that far fetched. Rats are extremely intelligent creatures, so it's not completely out of the scope of possibility. What I found more unnerving though was Willard's gradual slip into the life of a criminal because it just made absolute and perfect sense. Willard was not born a bad person, misguided and pressured by the world perhaps, but not bad in any sense. His gradual decline into the life of a criminal is caused by the many pressures he faces day by day, a job that he hates, an overbearing mother, no friends. And that was what really caught me because I found myself feeling bad for Willard and understanding why he did what he did. That was the most unnerving part of all. That I could sympathize with him and all that he did. To see yourself so easily becoming the "bad guy" is a difficult pill to swallow but Gilbert does it so flawlessly that the reader is left stunned at the fact that they could so easily see themselves in Willard's shoes.
Though I would not recommend this book to anyone with a fear of rats, rodents, mice etc, I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good thriller, anyone who is attracted to the sympathetic villain (ie Milton's "Sympathy for the Devil") and anyone who is looking for a unique but entertaining read that will leave you wondering what happened afterward, since the ending is so open ended.
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