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December 20, 2004
"Rats" by Robert Sullivan
I heard about this book when it came out and was reviewed in the New York Times but forgot about it until I saw it in the library and picked it up. I have sort of a vested interest in rats because the neighborhood I live in has a lot of them and has historically been the site of many infestations in the past. On nights when the garbage is stacked high on the curbs they are all over the place. Several times I've nearly stepped on them as they run between the garbage bags and the buildings.
Sullivan spent over a year observing rats in an alley in lower Manhattan but his observations are not the major subject of the book. The rat-watching nights he describes at the alley are not nearly as interesting as the people he interviews: exterminators, city employees, residents of rat infested buildings and scientists.
Because of the knowledge Sullivan learns from those he interviews, the book is a good primer on basic rat behavior and habits. Surprisingly, it's also a history of the city. Sullivan weaves rat stories into the human stories of New York which span the entire history of the city from its beginnings to the present day.
The history is good but of course the rat stories are even better. One of the most entertaining parts of the book, and by "entertaining" I mean "made me squeamish", is when Sullivan goes out to catch rats in Brooklyn with some city employees who are doing research. He describes catching the rats in cages and then sedating them with cotton swabs soaked in chemicals so blood can be drawn. It turns out that New York City rats are tough and the rats need double, triple and quadruple the amount of chemicals that would be needed to knock out a cat. In addition to drawing blood, the crew measured the length of their catches finding several that were one foot long. By the way, that measurement does not include the tail.
The book does not attempt to give an estimate of how many rats there are in the city but it seems safe to say that there are a lot. And by a lot I mean that there are an unknown number living in abandoned tunnels under the city who have never seen the light of day. It is these and other insights into the city's most hated residents that make "Rats" a sometimes disgusting albeit interesting read.
Posted on December 20, 2004 at 8:00 AM
Comments
And check this out from the Observer:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,,1386035,00.html
And this from the weekend Guardian:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1384777,00.html
Posted by: JS at January 10, 2005 6:38 PM