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    King Rat
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    King Rat
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    King Rat
    Ebook604 pages9 hours

    King Rat

    By James Clavell

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The epic novel of war, savagery, and survival in a Japanese POW camp by the #1 New York Times bestselling author and unparalleled master of historical fiction, James Clavell

    Japanese POW camp Changi, Singapore: hell on earth for the soldiers contained within its barbed wire walls. Officers and enlisted men, all prisoners together, yet the old hierarchies and rivalries survive. An American corporal, known as the King, has used his personality and wiles to facilitate trading with guards and locals to get needed food, supplies, even information into the camp. The imprisoned upper-class officers have never had to do things for themselves, and now they are reduced to wearing rags while the King’s clean shirt, gained through guts and moxie, seems like luxury in comparison. In the camp, everything has its price and everything is for sale. But trading is illegal—and the King has made a formidable enemy. Robin Grey, the provost marshal, hates the King and all he represents. Grey, though he grew up modestly, fervently believes in the British class system: everyone should know their place, and he knows the King’s place is at the bottom.

    The King does have a friend in Peter Marlowe, who, though wary of the King and himself a product of the British system, finds himself drawn to the charismatic man who just might be the only one who can save them from both the inhumanity of the prison camp but also from themselves. Powerful and engrossing, King Rat artfully weaves the author’s own World War II prison camp experiences into a compelling narrative of survival amidst the grim realities of war and what men can do when pushed to the edge. A taut masterwork of World War II historical fiction by bestselling author James Clavell.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBlackstone Publishing
    Release dateJun 18, 2019
    ISBN9781982537616
    Unavailable
    King Rat
    Author

    James Clavell

    James Clavell (1921–1994) was a novelist, screenwriter, director, and World War II veteran and prisoner of war. He is best known for his epic Asian Saga novels, which launched with the 1962 bestseller King Rat, and their televised adaptations. He also wrote screenplays for such films as The Great Escape and The Fly, and was a writer, director, and producer on To Sir, with Love. His books Shōgun, Noble House, Tai-Pan, and Whirlwind were #1 New York Times bestsellers.

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    Reviews for King Rat

    4/5

    709 ratings21 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I don't know why I didn't read "King Rat" years ago when I read "Taipan" and "Shogun." This book was suspenseful, moving, and disturbing. Great read.
    • 3/5
      It is hard to imagine the true horror of life under Japanese occupation as a foreigner in the second world war, but this story does a good job at helping to understand that horror. The story is about more than survival in an inhumane prisoner of war (POW) camp, it is about capital, class, military hierarchy, rules and regulation, friendship and social organisations. The story is told through the lens of the fictional yet personal stories of the characters and the relationships they have between them and the situation and suffering of their loved ones. Survival is king! Amongst any group of survivors there are those that are better off because they are lucky. It is a warning and an education to learn of the rat eat rat reduction of humanity in Japanese POW camps.
    • 4/5
      The final novel in Clavell's Asian series which kicked off with Shogun. This book is set in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.
    • 4/5
      Good, solid Clavell. Not up to Shōgun, but worth reading.
    • 3/5
      got the book from Bob several months back - engrossing read, especially towards the end when you want to know what happens to the poor guys. clear opinions from the author on capitalism, religion, and the role of the US in WWII and it's cultural differences with it's allies
    • 4/5
      This is a very moving and touching story.
    • 5/5
      This is the first volume in Clavell's "Asian Saga" and was written about the Japanese prison camp of Changi located in Singapore, where the author himself was held as a POW during the late stages of World War II. "The King" is a successful wheeling and dealing American. Using capitalistic initiative, he concocts many money-making schemes, the most shocking of which, involves breeding rats to sell as "rabbit" meat. He generates feelings of hatred or envy in others, but everyone wants to be close to him in order to experience the material rewards that he provides. He befriends an honorable British officer, Peter Marlowe, who acts as his interpreter and learns that many ethical dilemmas may be relative. One of the most fascinating aspects occurs after the end of the war, when many of the POWs are fearful to return to normal life. There are moments of excitement and drama, but mostly it is a testament to the strength and adaptability of the human spirit. The story will be most interesting to those who enjoy military, historical, and cultural topics.
    • 3/5
      Perhaps it was this book's brevity, compared to the "epic" nature of Clavell's other novels, that left me feeling somewhat underwhelmed.This is definitely a good book but Clavell, and an interesting look at life inside a Japanese POW camp, but the book didn't have the lasting impact I expected it to.
    • 5/5
      A belter of a novel, wrung from the author's own experience of life in a Japanese POW camp. The book is concerned with how men interact with one another in such a pressure cooker, and how moralism and character wilt in extremis. The book pulls few punches, and there is very little redemption in the end for any of the characters, and a lot of venom about the unfairness of war (captured in the small vignettes of life at home for the loved ones left behind). This is a classic piece of high tension writing, the pace never flags and the impact is considerable. How did men come through the experience? By being men, with all their faults, strengths and frailty, and they did prevail despite it all.
    • 4/5
      Another solid book by James Clavell. I must admit, I enjoyed the first two I read by him much more (Shogun being an all-time favorite), but this book also sucked me in and made me feel like I was a part of the prison camp. This story is obviously depressing in nature as it follows a group of Allied POW's in a Japanese prison camp, but it was hard to root for any of the characters. I suppose that was the point, and Clavell certainly succeeds in letting the reader know what the prisoner went through both physically and mentally in the camp. Clavell himself was a POW during the war, so you have to imagine how hard this was for him to write.
    • 4/5
      Great story and totally unique way of looking at the prisoner experience. Even a lot of the character development had some meat to it which was intriguing. Would recommend highly.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book as a young teen. I read it in 7th grade and then again in 9th. Not sure how I'd feel about it today as a middle-aged man with years and years of reading under his belt, but I suspect it might hold up fairly well.
    • 3/5
      Like _Hiroshima Joe_, this book provides the reader with an intimate description of a Japanese prison camp during WW2. Grizzly in its detail, we can only be grateful that we only have to read about this hell.
    • 5/5
      An interesting and engrossing novel. I found this difficult to put down, and ended up reading it in two days.This is based on the author's experiences in a Japanese POW camp, which adds to the realism. But it's a novel, not an autobiography, and it should be read with that in mind. I've seen a few reviews which mark it down for factual inaccuracy, but I think that's missing the point.Maybe not quite as good as Shogun, but that's mainly because Shogun is so good that it's hard to live up to.
    • 5/5
      Clavell's best novel IMHO (warning: it reads much differently from his others, this is no Shogun or Taipan). The POW story alone is gripping, but there's a central question that resonates - what parts of your soul would you give up to survive? It makes for a rather satisfying and haunting ending with the follow up question: what kind of man would those choices make out of you, when you become free?
    • 4/5
      This took a little while to get into, partially down to my lamentable lack of knowledge of matters military - rank and so on. Also I found it almost impossible to visualise a camp housing such an astronomical number of people. I had to watch a bit of the film just to get my bearings.But this was a superb story of suffering, near-starvation, survival and wheeler dealing. The relationship between the main characters ('The King' and Peter Marlowe) was fascinating and well drawn. I found myself wondering why, every time he is referred to, Peter Marlowe has his first and second names welded tightly together. He is never 'Peter', never just 'Marlowe', always both. I'm sure there must be some significance to this, I just don't know what it is.
    • 5/5
      My favorite Clavell novel. He writes about the Japanese POW camp with the familiarity of a man once imprisioned in such a camp. His characters battle with their own morality is the driving force behind a surface story which on its own is captivating.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. The ending. I think on it quite often when I see that a person can thrive in one situation yet be useless in another, which describes all of us, really.
    • 3/5
      I'm going to persist with the Asian Saga, even though I'm not really a big fan of Clavell's writing anymore. I thought 'Shogun' was great, but 'Taipan' and 'Gaijin' were too much work. Fortunately, as a piece of writing, 'King Rat' is much better - and it should be too, as it is practically autobiographical.That said, it is hard to communicate the horrors of the prison of war camp, and I don't think that this comes nearly as close as others that I've read.
    • 5/5
      Clavell was a prisoner of war of the Japanese during WWII & this book is about living in such a camp. It's an incredibly good, yet horrible story. It's not really like 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch' except that it does give a pretty granular look at just how far from the human norm people can adapt. I can't say much else without a spoiler, so I'll just say that it won't ever be your favorite book to read over & over, but it's a 'must read once'.
    • 5/5
      King Rat - James Clavell *****This is the first novel by Clavell that I have read. When I picked it up I didn’t realise that it was part of a group of six books he published called the ‘Asian Saga’. Although it was the first written, if placed in chronological order it is actually the fourth in the series. However, I don’t think there is any tenuous link that means it has to be slotted into the order of reading at a certain point. King Rat was written in 1962 but set towards the latter end of WWII, and is based upon a number of the authors own experiences.What is it about?The story is set in the Pacific, and focuses on a group of allied prisoners currently imprisoned in a Japanese camp called Changi. The harsh and intolerable conditions meant that only 1 man in 15 had the strength to make it through to see peacetime. As with normal everyday life the social structure of the camp makes up the bulk of the plot, where the human condition is such that many will do anything they can to survive, and some even make a living out of it. King Rat is an American soldier who doesn’t conform to normal camp standards, he is always immaculately dressed, has plenty of food and a small army of followers. How long can he maintain this way of life? With Jealousy rife and the camp guards always on the lookout it can only be a matter of time before the King becomes a peasant.What did I like?The descriptions of camp life are second to none; it’s hard to believe sometimes that this is a work of fiction. You feel the prisoners pain as yet another dose of dysentery racks their already emaciated bodies. You experience the British officer’s resentment as they are reduced to wearing rags while their subordinates have clean pressed clothes. You wince at the brutality of the guards as punishment is dished out again and again. Clavell is a writer that is not afraid to pull any punches and I respect him for that.What didn’t I like?There really wasn’t anything to criticise. This is one of the best books I’ve read for a long timeWould I recommend?I can’t speak for any other of Clavell’s books, but I can certainly recommend this one. I can’t wait to try some more of his.