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Post by David A. Riley on Apr 15, 2016 16:02:37 GMT
SPOILER ALERT And I may have misremembered this, as it's many years since I read the book, but isn't the reviewer incorrect when they state that the rats were slurping up the baby? Didn't the baby survive? If so, it reads to me as if this reviewer only got as far as the baby being in danger and could read no more - which, I must admit, was what happened to me the first time I tried to read this book!
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Post by dem bones on Apr 15, 2016 17:18:58 GMT
I'm not so sure about that, but review gives the impression that critic abandoned book shortly after that particular episode. I bet James Herbert loved every seething word.
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Post by thedarkman on Oct 21, 2016 1:29:51 GMT
Pretty sure both puppy and child end up as rat food, but mostly occurring off-stage. Still pretty shocking...
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Post by ripper on Oct 24, 2016 15:54:52 GMT
Pretty sure both puppy and child end up as rat food, but mostly occurring off-stage. Still pretty shocking... It's been a while since I read 'The Rats' but I thought that the baby does, indeed, get killed. It's a bit sketchy but isn't there a report in a newspaper or a news item on TV and that's how the reader learns its fate?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2016 21:34:39 GMT
Pretty sure both puppy and child end up as rat food, but mostly occurring off-stage. Still pretty shocking... It's been a while since I read 'The Rats' but I thought that the baby does, indeed, get killed. It's a bit sketchy but isn't there a report in a newspaper or a news item on TV and that's how the reader learns its fate? Yep, I'm fairly sure both the dog and baby die, but I am apparently too lazy to stand up and walk the half dozen paces from my couch to the bookshelf to check.
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Post by ripper on Oct 31, 2016 10:47:06 GMT
It's been a while since I read 'The Rats' but I thought that the baby does, indeed, get killed. It's a bit sketchy but isn't there a report in a newspaper or a news item on TV and that's how the reader learns its fate? Yep, I'm fairly sure both the dog and baby die, but I am apparently too lazy to stand up and walk the half dozen paces from my couch to the bookshelf to check. If my memory isn't failing me, the rats are closing in on the baby in its pram, while it laughs at them, unaware of what they plan for it. Then the scene cuts away and there is a TV or newspaper report later on about a baby being killed by rats. It is imo a very effective scene, probably more affecting than if JH had gone at it full throttle and described the baby's demise.
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Post by ripper on Oct 31, 2016 10:56:50 GMT
I forgot to say that my recollection is that the puppy gets it while protecting baby from the rats and the baby also laughs at its death. Not sure, but there is also that scene in the underground where someone takes refuge from the rats in a cupboard or small room and the scene cuts away as the rats are gnawing through the door. That imo is another good scene where less is more.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2016 21:24:50 GMT
Yep, I'm fairly sure both the dog and baby die, but I am apparently too lazy to stand up and walk the half dozen paces from my couch to the bookshelf to check. If my memory isn't failing me, the rats are closing in on the baby in its pram, while it laughs at them, unaware of what they plan for it. Then the scene cuts away and there is a TV or newspaper report later on about a baby being killed by rats. It is imo a very effective scene, probably more affecting than if JH had gone at it full throttle and described the baby's demise. Alas, I don't think Jim knew where the throttle was back then. Let's put this hairy rodent to bed -- I have the book here... Chapter 3... One year old Karen Blakely is playing with Shane the mongrel while mother Paula makes a cuppa in the next room. Rats wander in through an open door and set about the dog. At which point, 'The baby began to cry with horror as she saw her beloved playmate being hurt by the foul-smelling creatures.'Shane, seeming to 'sense the child's danger' leaps for the rats who are going after the child, three rodents still clinging to its body. It falls upon one 'huge rat that was already biting into the baby's leg and then is 'torn to pieces under the black, writhing mass'. On hearing the ruckus, mum Paula runs in and beats the rats away from what's left of dog and baby and runs 'from the house with her dead baby, screaming, holding the bloody body to her breast while the rats finish eating the dog. End of chapter.
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Post by ripper on Nov 1, 2016 9:41:40 GMT
If my memory isn't failing me, the rats are closing in on the baby in its pram, while it laughs at them, unaware of what they plan for it. Then the scene cuts away and there is a TV or newspaper report later on about a baby being killed by rats. It is imo a very effective scene, probably more affecting than if JH had gone at it full throttle and described the baby's demise. Alas, I don't think Jim knew where the throttle was back then. Let's put this hairy rodent to bed -- I have the book here... Chapter 3... One year old Karen Blakely is playing with Shane the mongrel while mother Paula makes a cuppa in the next room. Rats wander in through an open door and set about the dog. At which point, 'The baby began to cry with horror as she saw her beloved playmate being hurt by the foul-smelling creatures.'Shane, seeming to 'sense the child's danger' leaps for the rats who are going after the child, three rodents still clinging to its body. It falls upon one 'huge rat that was already biting into the baby's leg and then is 'torn to pieces under the black, writhing mass'. On hearing the ruckus, mum Paula runs in and beats the rats away from what's left of dog and baby and runs 'from the house with her dead baby, screaming, holding the bloody body to her breast while the rats finish eating the dog. End of chapter. Well, my memory was, indeed, faulty on this one. I could have sworn that the rats were closing in on the baby when it cut away. I wonder if I am getting it mixed up with another book and the creatures weren't rats at all. There were hundreds of these things published and I devoured them like a hungry rat on a puppy--or baby for that matter:). Now, I shall be trying to remember where exactly that baby scene came from, for it is so clear in my mind about the cutaway, even if rats were not the culprits.
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Post by ripper on Mar 30, 2020 10:24:43 GMT
I'm currently re-reading The Rats. That scene with the dog and baby still makes me feel uncomfortable. After the attack, Harris, the teacher, is in the hospital with one of his pupils, who has also been bitten by a rat, when the mother comes in clutching the dead baby in her arms, though it isn't until later that Harris learns the baby was killed by rats.
I think The Rats shows Herbert at his best. It has a rawness and ability to shock that was lost in his later books, which imo were way too long.
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Post by johnnymains on Mar 30, 2020 16:59:06 GMT
I'm currently re-reading The Rats. That scene with the dog and baby still makes me feel uncomfortable. After the attack, Harris, the teacher, is in the hospital with one of his pupils, who has also been bitten by a rat, when the mother comes in clutching the dead baby in her arms, though it isn't until later that Harris learns the baby was killed by rats. I think The Rats shows Herbert at his best. It has a rawness and ability to shock that was lost in his later books, which imo were way too long. When James was on it he was untouchable THE RATS, THE FOG, SHRINE (which I tihnk is one of the finest novels to have come out of 80s Britain of *any* genre) and his last great work CREED, he could have written one of those and have rested on his laurels quite easily. I think his latter novels, thinking PORTENT onwards, to me at least, looked as if he was trying to be the male answer to Susan Hill and dying on his arse or trying to do big epic Stephen King-esque novels and dying on his arse. I did read every novel he did in the hope he would recapture some form, but ASH - I only made it a quarter of the way through, sadly.
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Post by andydecker on Mar 30, 2020 17:40:21 GMT
When James was on it he was untouchable THE RATS, THE FOG, SHRINE (which I tihnk is one of the finest novels to have come out of 80s Britain of *any* genre) and his last great work CREED, he could have written one of those and have rested on his laurels quite easily. I think his latter novels, thinking PORTENT onwards, to me at least, looked as if he was trying to be the male answer to Susan Hill and dying on his arse or trying to do big epic Stephen King-esque novels and dying on his arse. I did read every novel he did in the hope he would recapture some form, but ASH - I only made it a quarter of the way through, sadly. I also re-read THE RATS about two years ago. Still as good as it was. I always merit if a writer is growing over the time, happens seldom enough. But I couldn't get through his last half dozen. I think the last one I enjoyed was Haunted.
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Post by ripper on Mar 30, 2020 18:11:05 GMT
Yes, I, too, struggled with Ash. I got about halfway through and by then I had had enough, though I enjoyed the earlier Haunted, and to a lesser extent The Ghosts of Sleith. I can't recall if Secret of Critchley Hall was his last or second to last, but I got it on CD from the library. Even then, I was glad when it had finished. Another that I tried to plough through was The Magic Cottage. There is a scene when fairies start flying around the cottage and that was it for me.
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Post by kooshmeister on Mar 30, 2020 21:35:45 GMT
I still need to get my grubby mitts on this, the seminal killer animal novel. Eying a cheap copy on eBay right now.
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