Can a book about the life of a rat rise to the level of great literature? Obviously that depends on personal taste. Sam Savage, however, has written a tremendous story that might actually be considered great by more than a few. Written almost entirely as a narrative, experimental perhaps but highly effective because the rat, Firmin, in Savage's first novel, "Firmin, Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife", longs for some type of connection with the humans who inhabit his world. But, alas, he is a rat. His intellectual world is completely self contained within his narrative, the books he reads (and nibbles on), and the journeys he takes through alleys, old buildings, and the littered gutters of an older city of Boston scrounging for food. So the dialogue is brief and we therefore spend most of our time in Firmin's head. Which is a good place to be because Firmin is foremost an observer of life. What Firmin sees he first names and then describes as he tries to bring sense to the world around him. Which, because it is a multidimensional world of humans, since he cannot see too far above the two dimensional world in which he lives, even though he is a prolific reader, he has trouble making sense of it all. Things occur outside his level of understanding and perspective. For instance, the first human Firmin ever loves gives him a box of good tasting food to eat. The food, of course, is rat poison. Do we need any greater insight into the human condition? Savage begins his story by letting us know we are in for some sad times ahead, but his stories are not exceptionally sad, or even tragic. They are simply real, observed, and magnificently described from the lowest possible perspective--which should change our perspective if only a little. In the end, Firmin could not escape from the world he was born into. Do we share Firmin's fate?
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