Mrs Frisby & The Rats Of NIMH
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
This is a book, published in 1971 by American dude Robert C O'Brian. Actually his real name was Robert Leslie Conly. I shall assume you havn't seen the film yet.
The story is about a widowed mouse, Mrs Frisby. Yeah, I know they changed it to Brisby in the film, and it don't half sound a lot better. Anyway, Mrs F has a big problem. Her youngest son, Timothy, has pneumonia and needs to stay in the house for another 3 weeks. However, the farmer is going to plough his field in 5 days time. So Mrs F has to find someway to get Timmy away or else he will die under a tractor. However if he leaves the house then the cold in the air would kill him. A chance encounter with a crow, Jeremy, leads to a meeting with the owl, who tells Frisby to go see the rats. That she does, and from then on the story kicks up with the rats who are, in the book, undoubtably the coolest characters.
The film differed from the book in many ways. But if you want to know about the film then go read my article The Secret Of NIMH, for that is what the film was called.
The single largest part of the book is when Nicodemus (the head honcho of the rats) tells Mrs Frisby about how the rats came to be so frinking clever and why they live in the rosebush (and it's more than just a rosebush). This is also the best part of the book. It shows the rats as being more than just plain rats. Which is true, these are super-intelligent rats who barely age a bit. This section shows them as something akin to people. They learn, read, make stuff and dream of a time in which they no longer have to live as rats.
Justin is as suave as usual, but the suave-master himself, Jonathan Frisby/Brisby does not appear in the book. Apparantly he died a year beforehand. My copy has pictures in it that depicts the characters as something rather less dignified (apart from Jeremy).
The book spawned two sequels, written by Robert's daughter Jane. They are Racso And The Rats Of NIMH and RT, Margeret And The Rats Of NIMH (cool titles eh?) I found Rasco (as I call it) a joy to read, as it really expanded on everything in Frisby. Unfortunatley RT is out of print in the UK. Damn.
