The Rats is an Excellent Creature Feature in a Book
I love reading new horror because there are so many incredible authors putting out great work right now. But in a effort to continue to increase my knowledge of horror literature past and present, my search for more classic horror books that I have not read presses onward.
One book that I’ve always seen and heard about but never actually took the time to read is The Rats by James Herbert. As usual, I tried to got into the book knowing very little about the actual plot and I didn’t know much beyond the fact that it was creature horror featuring (you guessed it) rats. This was my first James Herbert book and while I’m not jumping up and down to pick up another one, I will certainly read another of his books if given the opportunity.
This book, published in 1974, reminds me a lot of Peter Benchley’s Jaws, which also came out in ‘74. Both novels use animals as the antagonists but they also present the animals in similar ways. We are shown that the rats are evil and not your ordinary run of the mill rats through a series of short scenes throughout the book separate from the main story-line. The rat attack scenes are similar to the shark attack scenes in Jaws. The scenes in both books set up and make the reader aware of how dangerous the animals are. This is done to perfection in The Rats because the protagonist, Harris, a school teacher, doesn’t realize at first just how dangerous the rats are and it builds the tension through the early parts of the book.
As the story progresses, the tension continues to build and though the novel is on the short side, the intensity grows with each page. It all culminates in a rat attack on the school while Harris, his colleagues, and the students are inside. The scene is intense and pulls together all of the growing unease that Herbert has created throughout the rest of the book. By the time I got to this section I was rapidly turning page after page needing to know if Harris was going to be able to vanquish the hoard of rats. The action is incredibly well written.
Another similarity between The Rats and Jaws is the romantic side of things for the protagonist. In Jaws, the romance is, for me, a little bit over the top and unnecessary to the story, but the romantic scenes in The Rats actual help to better understand Harris and the motivations he has for his actions. I would have actually been okay with more backstory of his character because I found him interesting and knowing more about him would have painted a more complete picture of the rat attack on London.
In the end, I got about what I was expecting from this novel. A good amount of action and a terrifying monster in the form of giant, deadly rats. The horror in this book is blatant and it never tried to hide the fact that it was anything more than a creature horror novel. It wasn’t perfect but the positives greatly outweighed the negatives and it’s not hard to see why this book is considered a classic creature horror novel from one of the great eras of creature horror. Solid 4 out of 5 on this one.
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