The thoughts of a caged female rat reveal the history of the world from her perspective This is interleaved by tales old, new and fantastical of the protagonists of earlier writings, such as Oskar Matzerath of 'The Tin Drum' The result is at once an inventive story and a searing indictment of man's abuses of his environment By wasteful consumerism and an urge for self-destruction, the human race will be supplanted by its logical successor, the rat