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You Should Read This: Doctor Rat by William Kotzwinkle

Cover of Doctor Rat by William Kotzwinkle
The newer books have a different cover, but this has always been my favorite version.
Doctor Rat is a cunningly well constructed, heartwrenching, horrible wonderful book told from the point of view of an insane rat, thereby reinforcing my theory that odd povs may add to, rather than detract from, good fiction. Be aware: this is a novel about animal experimentation and it pulls no punches.

Doctor Rat witnesses the experiments being carried out on his fellow animals, wandering through a laboratory and speaking to us in a way that makes it clear whose side he’s on while showing how brutal the details of this book can be:

I should now like to sing “Three Blind Rats.” It’s part of the experimental program of music that’s being channeled toward certain rats, to make them more docile and sweet. Several of them are indeed beginning to nuzzle up to each other, one of them even executing a light-fantastic tripping of his tail, in time to the beat.

In the cage beside him, we actually have three blind rats. In fact, we have twenty-three blind rats, part of a magnificent new experiment initiated by a very ambitious student, who I’m featuring in this month’s Newsletter. He’s a sensitive chap and it was his exquisite sensitivity that caused him to dream up the item that’s become the latest rage here at the lab: the fabulous removal of eggs from a female rat’s body and the grafting of them to different parts of the male rat’s body — to the tail, to the ear, to the stomach. And for the past twenty-three days he’s been grafting them to their eyeballs! So now it’s time we all sang that promising young scientist a song.

Doctor Rat is not all horrifying detail though. There’s a lot of sweetness to it, including a moment where a human orchestra plays music in order to warn whales of approaching whalers that makes me cry, every time, while read silently or aloud. The amount of emotion it manages to stir in me is visceral. I wish I knew how Kotzwinkle accomplished it.

Which brings me to another reason by I think this is a good book for writers to read: this is a book that manages to be harrowing and uplifting all at once. It’s the sort of book that a writer confronting a real evil produces, a look that is cynical and despairing and yet tinged with a dark humor that lets you know there may be a glint of light somewhere. This is the sort of book you should read through once in order to experience it for the first time; then go back and see how the writer accomplished that experience. Doctor Rat looks at difficult, political things in a way only the greats manage.

Kotzwinkle is still around and is a prolific of both adult and children’s books. The child in me is compelled to note that the latter includes the “Walter the Farting Dog” series.

#sfwapro

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You Should Read This: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Cover of Flowers for Algernon, a science fiction novel by Daniel Keyes.
Charlie is one of the great characters of SF and the story resonates with his voice. If you're interested in finding out more about how to write great dialogue, check out my Speaking in Another's Voice: Dialogue online class tonight, 7-8 PM PST. Cost is $29.99 ($19.99 for former and current students) For more details, click on "Take an Online Class with Cat" at the top of this page.
Flowers for Algernon was originally a short story by Daniel Keyes that appeared in 1959 in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and won the Hugo Award the following year. Seven years after the story’s publication, it appeared in novel form under the same name, and shared that year’s Nebula Award with Samuel R. Delany’s Babel-17.

What: The story is told by Charlie Gordon and involves intelligence experiments being done on both Gordon and the title character Algernon, who is a white mouse.

Who: Anyone who wants to be decently well read in science fiction should read this book. It’s a classic, and one referenced and discussed elsewhere. One of my favorite stories by Susan Palwick, the title story in The Fate of Mice, is told from Algernon’s POV.

Why: Read it because you will want to know Charlie, to hear him tell his story, and to see a master use the device of an unreliable narrator in a way that takes your heart and breaks it over the book’s knee. Read it to discover a story that has survived the test of time and will, I strongly believe, continue to do so.

When: Read this when you’re thinking about things like how a character gets the reader on their side, as well as how what a character doesn’t say is sometimes as telling as what they do. Read this when you are ready to sit down and read it in one full sitting, preferably, which is doable for faster readers since it’s a slender book.

Where and how: Read it where you won’t mind weeping; public spaces (like airplanes) are unsuitable because you will have to have a heart as hard as winter to not tear up some. This is, in fact, one of the best examples of a fabulous tearjerker of a story that I know.

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You Should Read This: About Writing by Samuel R. Delany

The cover of About Writing by Samuel R. Delany, a writing guide recommended by Cat Rambo.
Delany says: "A reasonable concern -- in many a worry; and in few a hope -- is whether a creative writing teacher wishes to teach her or his students to write the way he or she writes. Emphatically that is not my enterprise. But the agenda here is no less personal. The thrust of these pieces is to teach writers to produce works I would enjoy reading. "
I can’t think of a better book to begin with than a writing book I go back to over and over again, both for teaching and to apply to my own writing. Be aware that many of these essays are also contained in The Jewel-Hinged Jaw.

What: About Writing, by Samuel R. Delany, is a book of writing advice that includes seven essays, four letters, and five interviews. Two essays are ones I go back to over and over again, “Thickening the Plot,” and “Characters.”

Who: People who will enjoy this book include all manner of writers, as well as anyone interested in Delany’s own awesome fiction.

When: You should read this when you’re feeling uninspired about your own writing or if you want some assurance that “writing to discover” is as valid an approach as plotting things out thoroughly.

Why: Delany is one of the foremost SF writers of our time. His work speaks not just to those beginning to write, but those well along their path. If, like me, you love his fiction, you’ll find About Writing sheds new light on those works.

Where and how: Read it someplace quiet, where you have space to stare off into the distance, thinking about what Delany has said. Read it straight through or else do what I do and dip in at various places. No matter what angle your approach takes, it’ll be rewarding.

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