(no subject)

[skygiants]

I've been meaning to reread Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH ever since that seeing that great Secret of NIMH festivid a couple years ago.

The last time I read Mrs. Frisby was probably when I was in elementary school, so I had actually forgotten ... most of what happens. There are some rats and some mice! SAD SICK BABY MICE. SINISTER EXPERIMENTS. MANY THINGS ARE CREEPY AND SAD. (This + Watership Down, which I should probably also reread some time, contributed to so many lingering creeped-out feelings about poison gas. Not ... that poison gas is not creepy anyway.)

What actually happens, for those of you who managed to miss this book in your childhoods or have likewise forgotten, is that one of Widowed Mouse Mrs. Frisby's baby mouse children is too sick to leave their house in the field, but if they don't leave the house in the field then they're all going to be run over by the farmer's plough, so Mrs. Frisby enlists the help of a local colony of escaped lab rats and is somewhat surprised to discover that they are also planning on setting up the first intelligent rat civilization somewhere down the road, assuming they are not re-captured by scientists first.

Anyway when I was younger I did not think to be particularly impressed by Mrs. Frisby as protagonist. But Mrs. Frisby is such a great protagonist! Literally everyone else in the book (...ok, every other rodent) has some kind of enhanced intelligence, with Extreme Tool-Using Abilities and +10 Reading Skills, which makes it actually kind of astoundingly important that Mrs. Frisby -- Least Special of All, no superpowers whatsoever, and a housewife/mother to boot -- is not only the POV character but unequivocally and without question the heroine. UNSPECIAL PROTAGONISTS ARE SO WONDERFUL.

Mrs. Frisby nostalgia party, anyone? MRS. FRISBY NOSTALGIA PARTY, GO.

Comments

[settiai]

Oh, that book. ♥

[skygiants]

ACES icon for this discussion. :D

[newredshoes]

When I was 6, which was shortly after a heady obsession with TMNT, I discovered Racso, and all I wanted was to be a giant punk were-rat.

I also used to perform play versions of the movie with a friend of mine who lived in another state. I was Jeremy.

Those books, though. SO GOOD. SO SO GOOD.

[skygiants]

I never actually read the sequels! I was a Mrs. Frisby purist. :O BUT WHO WOULDN'T WANT TO BE A GIANT PUNK WERE-RAT.

[pedanther]

Lovely book. I should read it again some time.

Mrs. Frisby was an excellent heroine.

[skygiants]

It holds up incredibly well! Definitely deserves to remain a classic.

[happydork]

Just impulse bought it! V looking forward to the reread. :)

[skygiants]

My only complaint was it went too fast! I brought it as a cheering thing on a subway ride AND THEN IT WAS GONE.

[zulu]

I loved Mrs Frisby! But I think my favourite chapters were Nicodemus's description of NIMH and how they learned and so on. I'm a sucker for Science and Learning Things Montages.

[skygiants]

Yeah, the whole Nicodemus and Team NIMH backstory is pretty awesome. I also am a sucker for From the Perspective Of The Lab Rat stories (....figuratively or literally. I guess there aren't that many as literal as this...)

[melannen]

Mrs. Fris y is the best! ...and I hate so much that the movie took all the Science out of it, because the Science was the best.

[skygiants]

I love the movie as a gorgeous animated film, but I do not understand that choice at all. >.< Why, terrifying Nicodemus? WHY, MAGICAL AMULET OF COURAGE.

[melannen]

And the levers and so on would have made such a fascinating animated sequence to watch, too! But no, GLOWY MAGIC.

[adiva_calandia]

Is the magical amulet of courage not in the book?? That was my favorite terrifawesome sequence in the movie, with the glowing and the self-sacrifice and the dramatic music.

[skygiants]

No magical amulet of courage at all! Everything is SCIENCE. The brick is moved by a very well-organized team of scientific rats with pulleys.

[brownbetty]

YES THAT WAS GOING TO BE MY COMMENT.

Like, they turn it into this mystical powers thing! DUM.

[skygiants]

The whole point is nothing is mystical and everything is science! >:(

[genarti]

You will be shocked, SHOCKED to learn that this is yet another of those Beloved Iconic Movies for which I read (and loved) the book and didn't realize for ages that a movie version even existed.

Then later in life I learned that there was a movie and it MADE THINGS MAGICAL, and I promptly determined to never watch it. Magic is the antithesis of the point!

[rachelmanija]

I love this book. I loved it when I was a kid, and it completely holds up. All those serious and interesting themes - and wee mice!

One of my very favorite teeny sub genres is "people create civilization from scratch," and it always seems to come out better when it's mice or rabbits than when it's people after the apocalypse.

I also love that the heroine is a middle-aged single mom. And that the two great acts of courage - hers and Justin's - are given similar weight and narrative importance, despite one being done by a young man and one by a middle-aged mom.

[skygiants]

Somehow no one is interested in writing the grimdark epic in which adorable mice are forced to resort to cannibalism to survive! WHICH I AM OKAY WITH.

Yes! I also love so much that Mrs. Frisby's narrative concerns as a middle-aged single mom are in fact just as important as Justin and Nicodemus' narrative concerns as super-strong genius warrior rats building civilization.

[rymenhild]

Mrs. Frisby is GOING to take care of those children! And the super-strong genius were-rats had better help, because they OWE her.

[genarti]

(But there is a filksong version of that! "The Kingdom of Mice," which apparently is based on an Orphan's Tales story? I really need to read that book sometime, although uh not primarily because of cannibal mice.)

[rymenhild]

I am suddenly craving a conversation between Justin and Nicodemus and RIVER TAM.

[jinian]

Maybe it's only that I've been overdosing on Heyer, but I swear that I just emitted an honest-to-god gurgle of delight.

[skygiants]

...I mean if there's anyone who's likely to be able to understand scientifically enhanced lab rat speech...

[thistleingrey]

Yes! My childhood copy went away at some point, but last year I picked up one for my daughter's possible eventual use. I am carefully not rereading it till then; the barest thread of the plot (and the use of the word "lee" or "leeward," totally new when I was six: they shelter in the lee of a rock at one point) have stuck well enough.

[cahn]

Yes, this -- I too read it when I was six or so, and remember distinctly the whole "lee" discussion being totally new. (I didn't quite understand it at the time, either, not being very good at visualizing things, and felt rather sad about this.)

I never saw the movie, having seen pictures in some movie-edition of the book and having the immediate reaction "but... Nicodemus doesn't look like that!"

[skygiants]

WHY DOES NICODEMUS LOOK SO TERRIFYING. I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

[thistleingrey]

Heh--I saw the film but blocked it out as ridiculous. DNE. :))

[skygiants]

Now that you mention it, I may have learned the concept of 'lee' from this book too!

I hope your daughter is as delighted by it as I am. :D

[kaberett]

... I SHOULD REREAD THE THING

[skygiants]

IT IS AN EXCELLENT THING TO REREAD.

[sanguinity]

My contribution to the Mrs. Frisby nostalgia party, several years prescient! (Correction to the entry: there is now Mrs. Frisby fic on AO3, because I asked for it for Yuletide, and got it, lucky lucky me.)

[skygiants]

Oh my gosh, what a treasure trove of NIMH fic! *___* SO EXCITED NOW. Thank you for your prescient contribution, this is excellent. :D

[lacewood]

Sadly I am in the same boat where I totally remember reading the book a long long time ago but I don't remember ANYTHING about it. Clearly I should correct this! And maybe check out the sequels, because I have zero memory if I even read those...

[skygiants]

It is an excellent shot of nostalgia! I'm also considering checking out the sequels now, just to prolong the experience.

[oyceter]

Awwww!! I did a reread of it back when sanguinity did hers and remember that it held up. Hahaha... clearly my predisposition for rodents goes back a very long way! The lab sequence in NIMH was totally my favorite as well, I love the bit where the rats figure out what reading is. I don't think I've ever seen the movie, just bits with Scary Nicodemus.