Miévillians discussion
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King Rat
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King Rat: Part Five - Spirits: Chapters Twenty to Twenty-Five
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Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "then it's time to realize that maybe he's entirely rat (which I still think he is...), because animals certainly do self-harm...."...but, if he is, why does everyone including the author's voice call him a half-breed, and why does the rat song not do anything to him? (view spoiler)
Er... "why does everyone including the author's voice call him a half-breed" isn't really debatable. My point all along has been that Miéville has told us Saul's mother IS a rat. Everyone would think he was a half-breed, because that's the story that is told.But you clipped the most important part of what you attributed to me: "But if that's all he has to go on...". The point I was making there is that it's ludicrous to assume that he can't be a rat, purely because "animals do not hurt themselves", because animals do that all the time — particularly if kept in unnatural conditions. Even well-treated animals can self-harm. I had a cockatiel who had plucked most of his chest feathers, and more than one dog who would chew things that would leave her bleeding all over the house if she was left alone.
Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "Er... "why does everyone including the author's voice call him a half-breed" isn't really debatable. My point all along has been that Miéville has told us Saul's mother IS a rat. Everyone would thi..."Hmm, well.. maybe the distinction there is PURPOSEFUL self-harm? ...but I admit that either CM didn't do his research very well there, or else he simply did not express that well enough. :P
As for Mieville telling us that Saul's mother is a rat? I don't feel that way. An unreliable character in the form of King Rat - most definitely not a character to be trusted right from the very first moment we meet him, told Saul that. But just because the king of Thieves told us something doesn't mean that the author wants us to believe it....
Fabian is a visual artist and, if anything, his art seems less artistic than Natasha's. His art appears to me to be driven entirely by what he thinks is required, rather than any interior drive.
Natasha, equally mechanically, is laying down tracks for her magnum opus, Wind City. She includes a piano: "the instrument that so often ruined Jungle…" Ugh. No wonder I don't think much of Jungle… Give me Oscar Peterson, any day.
Saul fights with King Rat, tells him to solve his own problems, and goes off on his own. "He crouched on the roof … and looked out over London at an angle from which the city was never meant to be seen. He had defeated the conspiracy of architecture, the tyranny by which the buildings that women and men had built had taken control of them…" and later: "But the city did not like to be found out." Again, the animation of the inanimate.
Crowley becomes even less enamored of Saul as a killer, even as still more people die who are connected either to him or in his apartment. He conceives of the idea of a flute as an instrument of murder (I have owned a few — I honestly can't see how you could use one more than once). When he asks Fabian about flutes, Fabian immediately has suspicions about Pete, so brilliantly tries to confront him. And that's the end of that…
When we return to Saul, Anansi tells him about Kay and Natasha and Fabian, and Saul goes a little crazy. "Animals do not hurt themselves, Saul realized. There was still human inside him, then." WTF? If that's all he's got to go on, then it's time to realize that maybe he's entirely rat (which I still think he is...), because animals certainly do self-harm.
The piper leaves a boom-box in the sewers and entrances the entire rat population, including King Rat. When Saul destroys both the machine and the enchantment it's placed on the rats, the rats obviously realize what has happened to them, but I think it's illustrative that it doesn't make them any more forgiving of King Rat. Their rejection of him after Hamelin was clearly not just because, as King Rat claimed, there were no survivors in Hamelin to explain that he was as much a victim as them.