Quotes
“True there are degrees of honor — but one man can have only one code. Do what you like. It’s your choice. Some things a man must decide for himself. Sometimes you have to adapt to circumstances. But for the love of God guard yourself and your conscience — no one else will — and know that a bad decision at the right time can destroy you far more surely than any bullet!”
“My pa brought me up. He’s a bum, but he taught me a lot about life. Number one, poverty’s a sickness. Number two, money’s everything. Number three, it doesn’t matter how you get it as long as you get it.”
“You know, I’ve never thought much about money. I suppose in the service — well, there’s always a monthly pay check, there’s always a certain standard of living, so money doesn’t mean much.”
Clavell’s first of work of historical fiction, King Rat, is inspired by the author’s own experience in a Japanese-run POW camp located in Singapore, 1945. The 479 page novel is a character study, taking place almost entirely within the harsh confines of the Changi POW camp. The camp comprises captured Australians and Englishmen, with a small contingent of Americans. One American, the “King,” leverages his social and business acumen to ascend a position of power and prestige over his fellow POWs as a black marketeer. The novel centers around the British flight lieutenant Peter Marlowe, the author’s surrogate character, and his evolving friendship with the King in the final months of WWII.
The book explores how different perspectives on honor and morality interact in the face of death and disease. Interestingly, the most “moral” character of the book is actually the antagonist, a military police officer Grey. Grey is admirably incorruptible but also a pedantic martinet who is it kept alive by his smoldering envy-hatred of the King. Secondary themes include: British/American cultural differences, capitalism, homosexuality, mental health, and the dissolution of identity.
Like many books that illustrate the human condition in a devastating context, this work makes one appreciate elements of life typically taken for granted — the luxury of a nominal bowel movement, for example.