Oh, Rats!: The Story of Rats and People (review)

Noted historian Marrin here takes a compact and chatty look at one of history's biological forces, the rat. Chapters of a few pages apiece focus on topics such as the evolution of rats, rat habits and characteristics, rats' effective relationship with human populations, humans' not-so-effective attempts at getting rid of rats, rats' role in spreading disease, and the use of rats in medicine and other human-useful areas. This isn't up to Marrin's usual crisply factual standard—dates would be welcome for some statements (when was rat baiting a popular sport in Europe and America? When did New York City apartment tenants bring rats to court?), and the writing is also sometimes disjointed or unclear (it's hard to reconcile the advice to "appear calm" when encountering a wild rat with the immediately subsequent information that "screaming at the top of your voice will scare it away"). At least one of his tidbits (the "Ring around the Rosy" rhyme symbolizes the plague) is a myth presented as true, and a few other anecdotal reports are sufficiently questionable to make one wish for the author's usual detailed endnotes. This is still jam-packed (rat-packed?) with browsable tidbits, though, ranging from rats' survival in the face of nuclear testing, to ratty phrases in language, to the existence of judged "Pageants for Pretty Rats"; many pages have sidebars ("White House Rats," "Rats on the Menu") for additional nibbles of information. The book also touches on issues of culture and ethics, pointing out that the grossness of eating rats is in the eye of the beholder and that concerns have been raised about the use of rats in laboratory experimentation and cosmetics testing. Mordan's distinctive, densely lined black clayboard illustrations accented with wine-red tints (especially in the rats' gleaming eyes) are intriguingly intricate, if sometimes a little dark for viewing of details. This doesn't have the reach of Kurlansky's The Cod's Tale (BCCB 10/01), but those who enjoyed the species-focused look at history may appreciate this personable rodential tail, er, tale. Appended is a bibliography of the author's sources and a sampling menu of other rat-related books.