King Rat (1962 novel)

King Rat is the 1962 debut novel by James Clavell. It is set in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Singapore during World War II.

Related Topics:
1962 - Novel - James Clavell - Japan - Prisoner of war - Singapore - World War II

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The book was made into the 1965 movie King Rat and was the first of Clavell's novels to be so adapted.

Related Topics:
1965 - King Rat

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The novel is set in the Changi P.O.W. camp, which was notorious for its brutality and inhumane conditions - out of 150,000 prisoners, only 10,000 survived. Clavell himself was a prisoner there for three years. He has stated that one of the major characters, Peter Marlowe, is based upon his younger self.

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The three main characters are Peter Marlowe, a young British pilot lieutenant; Robin Grey, an older British officer and the provost marshal (the camp cop); and the King, an American corporal. Marlowe enters the camp and finds himself in the middle of a power struggle between Grey and the King. Grey, older and a product of the British class system, is attempting to maintain strict military discipline and organized cooperation among the prisoners as the means for their survival. King, on the other hand, is an individualist and a pragmatist. Feeling that the discipline and cooperation insisted upon by Grey is useless in their brutal situation, King has become a major black marketeer, trading and dealing with various Japanese guards and other prisoners for food, clothing, information and what few luxuries are available. As a result, King, although only an enlisted man and a lower-class nobody in civilian life, has become a major power in the enclosed society of the P.O.W. camp.

Related Topics:
Lieutenant - Corporal - Class system - Black market

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Marlowe is caught between the two. He finds King personally engaging and he desires or needs whatever small survival advantages King can provide. Marlowe comes from the same country, but a different social and economic class from Grey. Yet, he understands and somewhat sympathizes with Grey's insistence on discipline and strict adherence to rules.

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The novel is an examination of the morality and ethics of survival, and of the changes in morality and ethics that an individual can undergo when faced with a need to survive in difficult conditions. It is also an examination of the class system, especially contrasting mid-twentieth-century differences between American and British attitudes towards class and social/economic backgrounds.

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Years later, King Rat was retroactively made part of Clavell's sweeping Asian Saga series.

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