THE HOLIDAY RAT AND THE UTMOST MOUSE: Two Stories about Enormous Hopeful Possibilities

by Felice Holman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 10, 1969

In plain language, the story of a declining feather-duster factory that becomes a flourishing feather-flower factory after the proprietor, chasing a bold rat, pitches a newspaper at him and, in picking it up, spies the ad that will save the plant; in the second ease, of a new power station enabled to transmit on schedule thanks to a mouse who runs through a conduit and opens it up for a cable. Both are ceremoniously rewarded, the one with a plaque, the other with a cake, but one has behaved instinctively and the other has been bribed to ignore his instincts: neither is quite the hero he's made out to be. Neither do we learn, incidentally, why the rats left their river bank for the factory or just what was blocking the conduit. Actually it's all applique, a matter of high polish and exaggerated precision in the first (every line is quotable though none is memorable) and of mass-media, big-business jargon in the second. What's meant as a spoof of the English stiff upper lip and the American big lip (though in neither case is the setting specified) comes out like a literary exercise.

Pub Date: Nov. 10, 1969

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1969

Categories: FICTION