Characters in "King Rat"
- The King: an American corporal; at the end of the novel he is sent back to the United States under an impending investigation for illegal profiteering in a prison camp, and is never seen again by Marlowe
- Peter Marlowe: the main protagonist, a young British fighter pilot who later becomes an author; based on James Clavell
- Robin Grey: an older British officer, after the war he becomes a member of Parliament and a Russian agent
Two characters from King Rat also appear in Noble House (published 1981), a novel set in Hong Kong in the early 1960s, when Marlowe is a writer visiting Hong Kong to do research on the great British trading companies there. Grey, embittered by his failure to obtain a commission in the postwar British Army despite his suffering during the war, has become a radical socialist Member of Parliament and is also in Hong Kong on an official visit. Unknown to Marlowe, Grey has become a secret Communist and a Soviet agent who tries to thwart efforts to improve relations between China and the West.
Read more about this topic: King Rat (1962 novel)
Famous quotes containing the words characters, king and/or rat:
“A criminal trial is like a Russian novel: it starts with exasperating slowness as the characters are introduced to a jury, then there are complications in the form of minor witnesses, the protagonist finally appears and contradictions arise to produce drama, and finally as both jury and spectators grow weary and confused the pace quickens, reaching its climax in passionate final argument.”
—Clifford Irving (b. 1930)
“The old Romans all wished to have a king over them because they had not yet tasted the sweetness of freedom.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“Your rat tail is all the fashion now. I prefer a bushy plume, carried straight up. You are Siamese and your ancestors lived in trees. Mine lived in palaces. It has been suggested to me that I am a bit of a snob. How true! I prefer to be.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)