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King Rat | 
 enlarge | Author: James Clavell
Publisher: Dell
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $7.98 (100%)
New (37) Used (345) Collectible (11) from $0.01
Rating:  83 reviews
Sales Rank: 20187
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0440145465
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780440145462
ASIN: 0440145465
Publication Date: September 1, 1986
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Some wear on book from reading, spine creases, wear on binding and pages, we guarantee all purchases and ship all items via USPS mail.
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Product Description
The first volume in the author's colossal Asian historical saga. By the author of Noble House, Shogun, Gai-Jin, and Tai-Pan. Reissue.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 78 more reviews...
 King Clavell August 12, 2008
This is a brilliant work. I was fully vested in each and every character. Whether or not you like the populace of this prison camp, if you sympathize with the honest or the desperate, you will care about the men portrayed in this effort. Even the Japanese guards are well rendered and have substance. Read it!
King for half a century (almost) July 23, 2008
This book King Rat, is one of the best genre fiction books you could ever come across. The detail of the plot is just so unexpected. All this happened in a miserable military concentration camp (which is what it was in Changi during ww 2) It is fresh and well written and psychologically real as if it was written recently and yet the book itself is older than the Beatles. There are at least 5 astoundingly original characters in this book as well as the usual corruptable military types.
Corporal King (King Rat) is one of the less astounding but is completely believable as a street wise American who benefits from the moral shambles aroung him.
The author, the late James Clavell-an Englisman- was imprisoned in Changi by the Japanese, himself as a young Captain.
It is beautifully written within the tough prisoner genre that the book belongs to.
If you like WW 2 stories about near triumphs and near misses over moral corruption you will really admire this classic book.
compelling and disturbing April 25, 2008
Interesting viewpoint set in the second world war. Reminds me of the Pearl Jam song, "Rats", and uses the same comparison between rats and humans albeit to different ends. It suggests comparisons along many levels, humans and rats, British and American, friends and enemies, us and them, strong and weak, that, for my taste, is a kinder examination of the horrors of war and what humans are capable of doing to other humans. At the end, there's room for introspection.
Trading Conscience for Survival in a Japanese POW Camp November 12, 2007
The setting is a Japanese POW camp near Singapore in early 1945. After years of Japanese neglect,
near starvation diets, tropical diseases, and increasing hopelessness of liberation, British,
Australian, and American prisoners are dropping like flies. A young and idealistic British pilot,
Peter Marlowe, forms an unlikely friendship with a clever, street-smart enlisted American, 'the
King'. While all the prisoners are literally walking skeletons suffering from every disease the
tropics have to offer, the King inexplicably manages to eat, live, and dress normally. The King's
secret? Trading.
However, in Changi trading is a zero-sum gain and absolutely forbidden. (In this strange world, the
commanding British officers strictly enforce Japanese orders against their fellow inmates.) For one
prisoner to eat, another will go hungry (ier). And the King is the master at not going hungry -
looking out for No. 1. The king even outtrades his captors. Life is comparatively sweet for the
King, albeit lonely. After all, the entire camp burns with covetous envy regarding the King.
Nearly, everyone depends on the King, though, to make a life-saving trade - a watch for a bowl of
rice, $20 for an orange, etc. The King decides to take the unaffected Marlowe under his wing as a
sort of junior partner.
Marlowe is decidedly fascinated by this dynamic man (without a conscience?). And the King, in turn,
remains mystified by Marlowe's idealism and self-sacrifice. The King lets Marlowe in on his
adventures and his secrets, something the whole camp would like to know, too. The ever imaginative
King comes up with a brilliant scheme to both make money AND get revenge on his camp enemies. And
this perverted world comes to a surrealistic end with the closing of the Pacific War. Though some
survive Changi, the experience will haunt the survivors for the rest of their lives. The question is
who will survive.
This is an outstanding book, which I read in the space of two days, barely able to put the book down.
Clavell's book - based on his actual imprisonment in Changi - describes the truly surrealistic world
of an actual Japanese POW camp and the men within it. However, it is strictly a fictional account -
only 2% of the prisoners held in Changi died according to the Australian War Memorial's Creation of Changi Prison Museum article by Kevin Blackburn.
"Changi was genesis, the place of beginning again" September 29, 2007
We should be really grateful for the strike that prevented Clavell to work as a screenplay writer and director for a few weeks in the early sixties and led them to write his first novel. In this edition there is a nice prologue by his daughter explaining what prompted him to write this book, and how quickly he wrote it. The novel is a fictionalized retelling of Clavell's experiences in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Singapore.
Clavell does an amazing job in describing the personalities of the different characters that take part in the story. The fact that the camp held American, English and Australian prisoners provided him with the opportunity to showcase his acute understanding of the different cultures. If you add on top of that the Japanese and the locals that were in charge of managing the camp, you will find a wealth of characters that make this a mesmerizing read. There are two characters though, that are at the center of this tale, and whose actions could serve as a study in sociology. One is an American, the King, who is a corporal that has the ability to facilitate commerce, which is prohibited by camp rules, and therefore makes a very nice living, especially when compared with everyone else. When the King meets Peter Marlowe, a British Lieutenant, the contrast of personalities and moral codes could not be clearer. Thus starts an unusual friendship that will test Marlowe's character and convictions, since he will have to decide between compromising his morals in return for better living conditions for him and his friends, and sticking to his guns and keep on living miserably.
One thing that you can tell as soon as you start reading this novel, and that is confirmed later, is that Clavell is an excellent narrator and has a gift for describing characters and give them a soul. This helps understand how he can hold the reader's attention without it wavering in lengthy novels like Shogun. In this case, the parts that deal with the secret commerce help provide the story with variety, because they speed up the pace and change the tone. It is also interesting that this edition includes the passages related to the situation of those left behind, mainly wives and kids. These provide additional insights into the lives of the prisoners, helping us understand their motivations and behavior better.
In summary, this can only be defined as an excellent read. Although it has some scenes that may be hard on some readers for their brutality, I believe that the great majority of people will love it.
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