Rats

Reading Jack London's The Star Rover (1915). London always strikes me as an underrated writer, though who knows maybe he's more respected than I think. I have little enough knowledge of the literary world's opinion. My favourite pet theory about London is that George Orwell stole all his ideas from him. - Yeah, they both wrote stories about animals, right! - But get this: London also wrote a story (1907) called The Iron Heel about a totalitarian dystopia; and another book (1903) called The People of the Abyss, in which he disguised himself as an American sailor down on his luck in order to investigate the plight of the poor and down-and-out in London. Here's a quotation from The Star Rover where the narrator is discussing methods of torture:

"I was enamoured of the ancient trick whereby an iron basin, containing a rat, is fastened to a man's body. The only way out for the rat is through the man himself."

The Star Rover belongs to that particular sub-genre of novels concerning how much physical and mental punishment a human-being can take without dying. Try A E Ellis' The Rack for another example.