I can’t remember the first time I read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. In elementary school, I’m sure; my copy still bears an elementary-school version of my signature.
I was profoundly disappointed this time around. It was, of sorts, a surprise breakup and I’m still dealing with the emotional fallout. NIMH (abbreviated from here on) has been a staple on my shelf.
At this point, I want to delineate between the story and the literary style. I do love the story. It’s clever and classic fantasy. I’ve tried to break down what caused the writing to fail for me.
Foreshadowing — by the end, the obvious foreshadowing grew tiresome. It seems O’Brien was ill-advised by an editor or friend to add some foreshadowing into the story. So he added one-liners a few pages before each significant event. They stick out like the obviously used-to-be-a-carport-now-a-den of many older homes.
For example, when Mrs. Frisby reads “The Plan of the Rats of NIMH,” she comments to herself that “NIMH” sounds far away, which leads her to speculate all manner of things regarding the rats that turn out to be, gasp, spot on. For all she know, NIMH could be an expletive or a brand of canned corn. Later, Nicodemus casually comments that “[n]ow that Jenner and his friends are gone, we have seven [rooms] empty”. Mrs. Frisby, who has been listening to a story that has been, up to this point, primarily about the friendship and teamwork of Nicodemus and Jenner, doesn’t even blink at this announcement. A few pages later we learn that, gasp, Jenner and his friends left in opposition to The Plan. Foreshadowing = forced, unoriginal and obvious.
Narrator Voice — O’Brien has to navigate the tricky waters of an animal story, so he wisely chooses to write in third-person omniscient. Trying to limit oneself to what Mrs. Frisby can know and observe would be a tall order indeed. So the characters in NIMH seem to have a pretty good understanding of the world in general, from farming to human speech. But the description of Mrs. Frisby being caught by the youngest Fitzgibbon boy threw everything off kilter. “The ceiling, which had somehow become curved, was filled with little round moons," describes Mrs. Frisby being caught by an up-turned colander. It was a rare descent into how a mouse would experience such a situation, but it messed with the narrator’s voice and the rest of the story jerked around, like a wooden rollercoaster.
Round, Static Characters — No one changes. Barring a few tugs at my heart, NIMH is emotionally anemic. Even the moral issue of stealing from Farmer Fitzgibbon is settled prior to the story beginning so it’s really not a change. Some ambivalence is shown in the line, “in order to stop stealing we would, for a while, have to steal more than ever,” but it’s left hanging and not dealt with.
The section that got my ire up though, was when Mrs. Frisby learns the truth about her husband — that he had near-human intelligence, unnatural long life and snuck out at night to freelance for the rats until he was killed on the job. What?! I got really angry reading this. Justin the rat says, “We thought about telling you....” But well, that would have been really awkward you can almost hear him say to himself. So they didn't tell her... and she just takes it. Where’s the anger? Where’s the justified rage? Mrs. Frisby just sniffs stoically and goes on with life. Where’s the distrust? If they didn’t tell her about her husband Jonathan, what might they not be telling her now? Some honest emotional conflict could have taken the story to new heights.
I’m not pooh-poohing the whole story. I do enjoy the repeated line, “We all help one another against the cat,” repeated by Mrs. Frisby and the Owl. I like Mrs. Frisby’s sickly son, Timothy and the understated, yet strong role he plays. I like how Jonathan and Mrs. Frisby book-end the story of the rats when Nicodemus says, “Just as your husband did once, you have saved us from a disaster.”
And I do appreciate how NIMH deals honestly with death as it affects the world of animals. Not in a glorified Redwall style, but as a cycle of life, more like Bambi. I think it’s an important truth, one that I too easily forget. Chicken comes from a store, right, not from the death of a living creature. Hear me, I’m not making an appeal for PETA. But honestly dealing with life and death on earth does bring into focus the realities of caring for the earth.
My general impression in the end is that, well, this is something I could write. It felt unpolished, loose and plodding at times. So I’m left with some questions. Should I chalk it all up to 37 years of literary evolution? I don’t think so. Writing has not changed so much in four decades such that Holes has a profound literary advantage over NIMH. Am I so desensitized by modern entertainment culture that I need “more” from a book? No, because I fault the literary skill, not the storyline. Perhaps I am so familiar with the story that I’ve become a crotchety septuagenarian, acutely noticing every fault and imperfection of my mate?
Regardless, I’m sad. I’ll not enjoy this book nearly as much again.
Additional Resources
Warning: O'Brien's daughter wrote two follow-up books, Rasco and the Rats of NIMH and R-T, Margaret, and the Rats of NIMH. Do not read them. They are thinly veiled attempts to monetize the literary capital of a Newbery winner.
Next week: Winner of 1968 — From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E.L. Konigsburg
Everyone knows about the obnoxious guy who hips out in front of you from a side street, causing sudden braking and a few choice compliments, right?
