Rating: 
Summary: A great, humorous smartly written book.
Review: "Dr. Rat" was very smartly written and full of good humor...I was literally on the floor laughing at some parts, and cringing at others. Although it is great story, I do not reccomend it to squemish readers because there is alot of graphic animal experimentation details.
Rating:
Summary: Life changing
Review: 25 years ago I read Doctor Rat and have been a vegetarian ever since.
Rating: 
Summary: Marlowe is privileged to reintroduce William Kotzwinkle!
Review:
About the author...FROM RICHARD BAUSCH: "I think William Kotzwinkle is our Boccaccio--there isn't anyone funnier, smarter, or more inventive."
FROM KURT VONNEGUT: "Kotzwinkle is one of the few American writers in complete control of his material."
About Dr. Rat, FROM NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS: "A clout from the pen of a modern zen master of the literary world."
FROM THE NEW SCIENTIST: "A Comic Triumph...Doctor Rat is thoroughly anthropomorphic, very funny, and not lacking in the bite of truth essential to good satire."
FROM THE LONDOM TIMES: "Doctor Rat is Weird and Wonderful...A fantastic and ferocious Animal Factory Farm, an anthropomorphic, sentimental, and splendidly nutty Magnificat with echoes of Blake."
FROM THE GUARDIAN: "A very disturbing book...the Anti-Vivisection Society should consider distributing free copies."
FROM THE LISTENER: "A faint but authentic Blakeian echo in Mr. Kotzwinkle's rage, gives the book the voltage necessary to bypass insulating ideas and strike right into the emotions. If it is not a criticism of life, it is certainly a savage review of it."
FROM PLAYBOY: "Disney isn't going to pick it up for a feature length cartoon."
Rating: 
Summary: the horror of Dr Rat
Review: Anthropomorphic animals revolt! The first and the last chapters of this book were definitely the best. Those first chapters were hard to read, though. They were very sad. Kotzwinkle does not use grisly words when describing the maltreatment of laboratory animals. He's clinical and candid, which is disturbing in its own way. Heat oven to 250. Insert tray of kittens, paws taped down. Note plaintive cries and vaginal bleeding. I don't know if any of
the experiments he described are real, but he sounded [mad]. He then goes on to report the horrible treatment of all sorts of animals; from domestic dogs to cattle. Horrible, horrible, and sad. All of it sad. Made me a little ashamed to have pets. The revolt that started in a lab extended to all the animals of the world. The book ended on a global scale, both grand and sorrowful.
Rating: 
Summary: Grand and Sorrowful
Review: Anthropomorphic animals revolt! The first and the last chapters of this book were definitely the best. Those first chapters were hard to read, though. They were very sad. Kotzwinkle does not use grisly words when describing the maltreatment of laboratory animals. He's clinical and candid, which is disturbing in its own way. Heat oven to 250. Insert tray of kittens, paws taped down. Note plaintive cries and vaginal bleeding. I don't know if any of
the experiments he described are real, but he sounded [mad]. He then goes on to report the horrible treatment of all sorts of animals; from domestic dogs to cattle. Horrible, horrible, and sad. All of it sad. Made me a little ashamed to have pets. The revolt that started in a lab extended to all the animals of the world. The book ended on a global scale, both grand and sorrowful.
Rating:
Summary: A Rat's-Eye View of Modern Science
Review: Before the public grew concerned about the welfare of lab animals (and PETA began smashing labs), many of the scenes in "Dr. Rat" were actually tamer than the reality. William Kotzwinkle is a fine satirist, and he takes on the modern-day vivisectionists with a irony dipped in acid. "Dr. Rat" doesn't aim solely to educate; it wants to crucify the sadistic, paper-pushing subculture it illuminates. Dr. Rat, the protagonist, is indeed a rat, an inhabitant of the lab where hideous experimentations take place. (I'm waiting for someone to explain for me what medical need is served by sucking living rats' brains out through a pneumatic tube). Dr. Rat is charming in his sadistic way. "Having been driven insane," he notes early in the book, "I hold the necessary degree in psychology." It's impossible not to laugh even as you snarl while reading about the animals who are experimented upon in the name of "science". There are many scientific studies done upon animals that have been worthwhile. The ones portrayed in "Dr. Rat" are done for two reasons: to satisfy morbid urges and to earn tons of grant money. Interspersed with Dr. Rat's cheerfully malicious, decadently delicious narrative (rhymed deliberately, as it's one of his favorite things to do) are chapters told from the viewpoints of animals in different places. Chickens describe the nightless environment that forces them to lay eggs eternally before their throats are cut. Zoo animals suffer the torment of space too close to move in and the constant crush of gawkers. Even animals out in their own environment start moving towards a meeting place to begin a revolt against mankind's indifference and abuse of the environment. And that's where Kotzwinkle's weakest point is. The savage satire becomes a gooey, Hallmarky, "Born Free"-style ode to the fate of animals and nature. Kotzwinkle wants to tie the experimental community's indifference to the suffering they cause lab animals to the general devastation caused to the environment, and it really doesn't work. For one thing, Kotzwinkle takes a "noble savage" viewpoint of the animals--they aren't really animals, they're humans beings with four or more legs, wings, fur, scales, etc., in tune with the Earth and other creatures. And to really satirize every single cause of environmental destruction, Kotzwinkle would have had to write a series, not one book. Kotzwinkle should have separated the topics--Dr. Rat and his lab victims go in one book; the Animal Kingdom revolts in another. The mix never quite gels. The Animal Kingdom sections are overwritten and overwrought. There are a few scenes that evoke visceral reactions (the fate of the snake always makes me shudder), and there were some that brought a tear to my eye. But I cry at Kodak commercials, and the reaction of humans to the animal revolution is so unrealistic that it can't be believed. After I read "Dr. Rat" a second time, I began skipping the Animal Kingdom sections to get to the wonderful observations of Rat. The ending of the Rat-narrated story is also unrealistic, but as the tone never wavers from satire (unlike the Animal Kingdom, which is so earnest you could cry . . . from boredom), it's easier to get lost in and believe. In the end, we're left with the forlorn spectre of Dr. Rat, all alone, and the wail of academics who've realized that they're completely done in. It's hard not to laugh at their obtuseness, even as you're gasping at the wholesale destruction Rat has waged in the lab. And if you aren't laughing your head off when Rat is front and center . .. your joy center's gone dead.
Rating:
Summary: A Rat's-Eye View of Modern Science
Review: Before the public grew concerned about the welfare of lab animals (and PETA began smashing labs), many of the scenes in "Dr. Rat" were actually tamer than the reality. William Kotzwinkle is a fine satirist, and he takes on the modern-day vivisectionists with a irony dipped in acid. "Dr. Rat" doesn't aim solely to educate; it wants to crucify the sadistic, paper-pushing subculture it illuminates. Dr. Rat, the protagonist, is indeed a rat, an inhabitant of the lab where hideous experimentations take place. (I'm waiting for someone to explain for me what medical need is served by sucking living rats' brains out through a pneumatic tube). Dr. Rat is charming in his sadistic way. "Having been driven insane," he notes early in the book, "I hold the necessary degree in psychology." It's impossible not to laugh even as you snarl while reading about the animals who are experimented upon in the name of "science". There are many scientific studies done upon animals that have been worthwhile. The ones portrayed in "Dr. Rat" are done for two reasons: to satisfy morbid urges and to earn tons of grant money. Interspersed with Dr. Rat's cheerfully malicious, decadently delicious narrative (rhymed deliberately, as it's one of his favorite things to do) are chapters told from the viewpoints of animals in different places. Chickens describe the nightless environment that forces them to lay eggs eternally before their throats are cut. Zoo animals suffer the torment of space too close to move in and the constant crush of gawkers. Even animals out in their own environment start moving towards a meeting place to begin a revolt against mankind's indifference and abuse of the environment. And that's where Kotzwinkle's weakest point is. The savage satire becomes a gooey, Hallmarky, "Born Free"-style ode to the fate of animals and nature. Kotzwinkle wants to tie the experimental community's indifference to the suffering they cause lab animals to the general devastation caused to the environment, and it really doesn't work. For one thing, Kotzwinkle takes a "noble savage" viewpoint of the animals--they aren't really animals, they're humans beings with four or more legs, wings, fur, scales, etc., in tune with the Earth and other creatures. And to really satirize every single cause of environmental destruction, Kotzwinkle would have had to write a series, not one book. Kotzwinkle should have separated the topics--Dr. Rat and his lab victims go in one book; the Animal Kingdom revolts in another. The mix never quite gels. The Animal Kingdom sections are overwritten and overwrought. There are a few scenes that evoke visceral reactions (the fate of the snake always makes me shudder), and there were some that brought a tear to my eye. But I cry at Kodak commercials, and the reaction of humans to the animal revolution is so unrealistic that it can't be believed. After I read "Dr. Rat" a second time, I began skipping the Animal Kingdom sections to get to the wonderful observations of Rat. The ending of the Rat-narrated story is also unrealistic, but as the tone never wavers from satire (unlike the Animal Kingdom, which is so earnest you could cry . . . from boredom), it's easier to get lost in and believe. In the end, we're left with the forlorn spectre of Dr. Rat, all alone, and the wail of academics who've realized that they're completely done in. It's hard not to laugh at their obtuseness, even as you're gasping at the wholesale destruction Rat has waged in the lab. And if you aren't laughing your head off when Rat is front and center . .. your joy center's gone dead.
Rating:
Summary: Not his best...
Review: Dr. Rat doesn't flow anywhere near as well as the other Kotzwinkle I've read (The Bear Went Over THe Mountain, Fan Man). With chapters MAYBE reaching 5 pages it's not supposed to flow as such. It is intentionally choppy. I think it makes it harder to appreciate this book and the satire (often times uproarious) inside it. However as something to read while making coffee each morning or something in small installments it tells an interesting story. However funny comments aside I personally wish it had the flow and pulled me in like his other work has done. Still if you like his brand of humor and satire there are MANY lines here that will make you laugh out loud, even on a subway!
Rating:
Summary: Not his best...
Review: Dr. Rat doesn't flow anywhere near as well as the other Kotzwinkle I've read (The Bear Went Over THe Mountain, Fan Man). With chapters MAYBE reaching 5 pages it's not supposed to flow as such. It is intentionally choppy. I think it makes it harder to appreciate this book and the satire (often times uproarious) inside it. However as something to read while making coffee each morning or something in small installments it tells an interesting story. However funny comments aside I personally wish it had the flow and pulled me in like his other work has done. Still if you like his brand of humor and satire there are MANY lines here that will make you laugh out loud, even on a subway!
Rating: 
Summary: An Eye-Opening Shocker Filled With Cold Realism
Review: Dr. Rat is an expose' on mankind's cruelty to other forms of life around him, most specifically the animal kingdom. This book is an indictment of animal experimental laboratories, slaughter houses, poaching and hunting. Kotzwinkle uses a fast talking insane rodent to portray a macabre view of the inside of an animal experimentation laboratory grotesquely similar to a Nazi concentration camp. In the words of Dr. Rat himself "...having been driven insane, I hold the necessary degree in psychology." With this pointed statement, this bizarre story unfolds. Kotzwinkle paints a dark and frightening tale that is a reflection of our times. This book cuts right into the artificial and bloody foundation of Psychiatric `research' and experimentation, and the reader will be appalled at the harsh spotlight that it shines on the inhumane practices so common place in our society, yet hidden behind a paper-shuffling bureaucracy. This is a very clever book, and very timely. It will open anyone's eyes with its startling viewpoint. A real shocker filled with cold realism. This book is absolutely disgusting at times, but very poignant. It will open your eyes.
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