There are so many people that reviewed Firmin: Adventures of a metropolitan lowlife by Sam Savage, illustrations by Fernando Krahn. From the Guardian to your Sunday blogger, apparently no one seems to grasp the full extent of this twisted little tale… or tail, if you prefer.

Photo from LibrosyLiteratura.

It’s a tale that will grow on you. No, not crawl. It’s actually the story of a brain for literature that happens to be owned by a rat.

Born in Boston, a thirteenth cub to an alcoholic mother, he seems to be the perfect candidate for a life of misery and failure. The expectations are not far from the truth; he is indeed the skinniest and weirdest of all the 13 rat babies that roam around in the basement of a second hand bookstore. And he is about to get even weirder when he adopts a rather humanizing vice: if some people chew tobacco, Firmin starts chewing pages. At first, it doesn’t matter which is what. But somehow he manages to teach himself how to read; once he stumbles upon Finnegan’s Wake, he is hopelessly addicted to what will be his primary vice: books. His taste buds develop quite easily and soon he discovers that he could appreciate the quality of a book by first evaluating the taste of the pages.

Do you want to discover the taste of Joyce and Cervantes through a fantastic and easy read? Firmin may not be a book for those in search for a revelation or a funny novel but it’s a light read with a dash of nostalgia and a subtle taste of the 1960s.

So come on, quit the rat race, join the rat within the books and let’s rant on about a squeaky book. If you’ve already skimmed through it, you’ll remember that our little rat talked about writers and Writers: Wilde, Joyce, Cervantes were all writers with a W, so I ask you this: is Savage a writer with a W?