Watership Down starts in Sandleford Warren, a real place in rural ish Berkshire, England, which is quite likely home to many rabbits. But perhaps not for much longer: In February , the West Berkshire council approved a plan to bulldoze and pave over what was Sandleford Warren to make way for new homes , despite protests from Adams and others. As of this writing, however, the proposed development, Sandleford Park , was still in its early planning stages. His elder daughter demanded a story to pass the time.
The girls demanded that he write down the ensuing story, although it took 18 months for him to actually put pen to paper. I say: it's a book, and anyone who wants to read it can read it.
Parents were surprised that a book about anthropomorphized rabbits could have so much death and violence. Adams says that two characters were directly drawn from life. After the novel came out, Adams and Lockley became friends and—as friends do—took a trip to Antarctica together, and later collaborated on a book about the experience. Theorists often latch on to the folkloric elements of the story, or attempt to interpret it as a religious allegory.
A story—a jolly good story, I must admit—but it remains a story. They were in such a hurry to escape the warren that they forgot to bring the mystical other half necessary for reproduction. They came to the same conclusion that tribal units have come to for thousands of years. If they don't have something they need than they need to liberate it from someone else. The Efrafa warren is governed by General Woundwart. He is a brutal, militaristic leader who rules his burrow with an iron fist.
The Efrafa happen to have a plethora of DOES and Hazel and his band of intrepid bunnies believe they are clever enough, with the help of some unusual allies, to coax away enough DOES to insure the survival of their fledgling society.
This sets up one of the most pulse pounding showdowns I've read in a long time. Displaying the courage of the defenders of the Alamo and the steadfastness of the Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae I found myself glowing with the pride of a participant, white knuckles and all, as the Watership Down rabbits defend their home. The thing about this book is that you have to hang in there. I have started and stopped this book a handful of times, but several reviews on goodreads convinced me I was giving up on the book too soon.
At about page 70 I could feel my eyes looking over with longing at the stack of books waiting in the wings. As the pages stacked up I started to care about this band of brothers.
I wish that I had read it in time to have shared it with my kids. If you have kids young enough, read it to them. It will heighten the experience for you and them. I've already got this logged as a book to read to my grandchildren In memory of Richard Adams - : Some books have an amazingly unexplainable ability to transcend the purpose of their creation and take a leap into being an instant timeless classic. And when they catch you, they will kill you.
But first they must catch you; digger, listener, runner, Prince with the swift warning. Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed. It is a story full of palpable love for English countryside, full of 'rabbity' allegories of the variations of human societies and ideologies that nevertheless do not overshadow the simple but fascinating impact of the story of survival against all odds, rooted in friendship, bravery, loyalty, courage, quick thinking and learning, ability to see and embrace the new while relying on the ages-tested old, and perseverance despite the unfavorable odds.
Survival is the big theme, naturally; but another one is the coexistence between the old ways and the new ways, the balance between the natural and the 'unnatural', innate and learned. It's not just the rabbit society that is plagued by these choices, of course.
On a superficial read, it would appear that Adams favors the former: our rabbits are looking for a way to lead the 'normal' natural rabbit life that sharply contrasts with the decadent Cowslip's warren and militaristic Efrafa. But on the other hand, it's precisely the openness to the new things and experiences that allows Hazel's bunch to survive: the raft and the boat, the digging of burrows, the interspecies alliances; but they still hold on firmly to their essential rabbitness.
It's the harmony that Adams is looking for, and I love it. Adams succeeded in creating such vivid and distinct personalities for all of the rabbits in the story, making them so human-like and yet unmistakably animal at the same time.
Cute fluffy bunnies they are not, however; they are tenacious survivalists full of life force and determination to survive despite their status as prey for the 'Thousand', the many carnivorous predators from cats to hawks to foxes to humans. They are driven by the need to live and multiply and thrive and when allowed to do so, they are fearsome indeed - just think of how rabbits took over Australia, for example.
In Adams' rendition, they are and aren't like us, and it's both their similarities and differences from what we think of as 'human' that makes the story unforgettable. Hazel, the mastermind of the rabbit adventures, is a natural leader. He is not the fastest, the smartest or the strongest - but he has the understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the ragtag bunch he leads. He genuinely cares, and his charisma and leading by example are quick to win the loyalty of others. The parallels between Hazel and the legendary rabbit folklore hero, El-ahrairah, the Prince of a Thousand enemies, are not surprising, and the final scene of the book, lovely but quietly gut-wrenching, comes as no surprise.
If you'll come along, I'll show you what I mean. Hazel followed; and together they slipped away, running easily down through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom.
Unlike Hazel, he leads by force and coercion - but props to Adams for not making him neatly fit into a black-and-white good-vs-bad model as his amazing ability to at least temporarily make rabbits, perpetual prey, into predators was a source of almost legendary fame.
And yet Woundwort's vision breaks down because, grand as it may be, it's still just tunnel vision. For one beat of his pulse the lame rabbit's idea shone clearly before him.
He grasped it and realized what it meant. The next, he had pushed it away from him. Big, strong and experienced and therefore bound to succeed almost anywhere in the rabbit 'society', he grows from a careless and a bit bullyish character to one strongly loyal and just, learning to rely on brains over brawn and yet with enough ferocity and determination to be an unstoppable force when combined with Hazel's leadership.
The warren of Watership Down would have been doomed without Bigwig's boundless daring loyal courage, without his resolute determination and willingness for self-sacrifice for the others - a trait he would, of course, have not developed if not for the friends he made on the night of the escape from the doomed old warren in the search of Watership Down promised by Fiver.
Hazel learns to see the strengths and weaknesses in others; Bigwig learns to see them in himself. And meanwhile, somewhere in the wild, rabbits would quietly go on with their rabbit lives. Ok, so it's a book about a bunch of rabbits traveling through a small stretch of English countryside. As such, it doesn't seem like something that would appeal to anyone but a preteen.
But the fact of the matter is this is a great story, full of rich characters, a deep if occasionally erroneous understanding of things lapine, and it can reach moments of depth and profundity that the movie of the same title does not even begin to hint at. I was actually introduced to this book in one of the best ways I can imagine: a friend recorded the entire book on tape, and for a couple months I played the tapes of her reading a chapter or two just before I fell asleep each night.
My slow exposure to the book under ideal circumstances may have influenced my perceptions, but I can say on each subsequent rereading of the book I've come to appreciate it more. You can read the book just for the story: apparently, the author wrote the book from stories he would tell his children, and it still can easily serve that purpose.
But the richness of his characters lead to many interesting analogies to human life. For instance, from Hazel you can learn profound things about leadership. Throughout the book you feel that Hazel is the natural-born leader of his group of rabbits, but Richard Adams was very careful to develop this impression through character features rather than power-relations.
The contrast is clearly intentional since the other leaders of the book achieve leadership status through very different means. Many people think the book takes a strong stance against a particular kind of authoritarian rule, but it is important to recognize the book gives this impression not through structured diatribe or through argument, but rather it evolves out of character considerations, and out of the story itself.
This means that the result is far more complex than a simple argument. For instance, although General Woundwort may be seen as the main enemy that Hazel has to deal with, and the authoritarian rabbit is portrayed rather negatively at times, Adams quite intentionally adds some details that make him admirable to the other rabbits, even to the very end.
A diatribe would not be so complex. Fiver is another great character. He adds an element of magic to the story, and it allows Adams to link the rabbits he describes to a mythical world that enters into the story quite frequently.
One can almost see Fiver as a manifestation of imagination in this world. Big-wig is another likable character, and the story of this rabbits experience in Efrafa is one of the highlights of the story. Besides the characters, the descriptions of England are also quite acute.
You can actually track the course of the rabbits on maps, since Adams was careful to describe real places and things. That attention to detail is often missed in reviews of this book. Finally, the thing that brings all these features together and makes the book more than a mere story, or an account of human characters, or a diatribe against fascism, is the fact that Adams is quite conscious of the fact that he is telling the story from the perspective of rabbits.
The challenges they face are rabbit-sized, the ideas about the external world are rabbitlike, the philosophical insights seem rabbitized, and Adams brings many of our anthropomorphized ideas of rabbits together with the reality of rabbits in a surprisingly coherent fashion.
I suppose the book can be seen as a cultural study of an imaginatively rich but realistic rabbit world. I realize as I write this review that many other readers may not feel the same way about the book as I do. It does have some shortcomings. For instance, female characters only make a few appearances in the book, although I think Adams does show some sensitivity in their depictions. But, even with the limitations, I would recommend the book to anyone who likes a good story and who is willing to think deeply about a children's story.
I started this book about 2 months ago, got through the first 10 pages or so and I was not interested in continuing. I put it down. In all honesty, it seemed like it was going to be too babyish for me.
I mean come on, bunnies though? So I picked Watership Down back up with the intent of giving it just a few more pages. Much to my surprise, I was hooked. These bunnies are like the Johny Depp of bunnies. Picture the Rabbit of Caerbannog from Monty Python: that would probably be closer to the mark than Thumper from Bambi. I was not expecting to like it and that is why I am so shocked that I did. There was a lot more depth to this book than I ever expected.
Bigwig was my favorite. I am still trying to figure that one out. If you are a fan of fantasy you should definitely check it out. It is amazingly well written — it is not categorized as a classic for nothing! Bionic Jean. I remember when Watership Down was first published in It was a novel by an unknown English author, Richard Adams.
All of a sudden the book Watership Down was absolutely everywhere and people were reading it on buses, trains, park benches — all over the place. It captured everybody's imagination. Six years later the animated film came out, and it all happened all over again!
If, glancing at the cover, you asked any of those readers "Is this a book about rabbits? Yet if you then asked, "So is it a children's book?
From the first paragraph onwards, the style of writing indicates its focus group. The prose is too rich and complex for children; the concerns those of adults. There is breathtaking lyrical description in Watership Down. Richard Adams shows a detailed knowledge of the natural world in which the rabbits live, specifically the English countryside. The locations are geographically accurate, even to the little maps which are included.
Growing up in a rural area in the 's, Richard Adams had the sort of country childhood which no longer exists. Much of his time was spent alone, and this fired his imagination and his passion for make-believe, based on his direct experience of nature. Facts about little-known wild plants and flowers and their growing seasons, the creatures of the countryside, their habits, behaviour and terrain, are all interwoven in the narrative so that the reader absorbs this alongside the story, and becomes immersed in the English landscape.
It is a rich and satisfying experience; the language is to be savoured. As well as writing other fantasy novels, Richard Adams went on to write the factual book "Nature Through the Seasons" three years later, and much of that information is incorporated here.
He credits another writer, R. Lockley one of my favourite naturalist authors for teaching him about the characteristic behaviour of rabbits through his book "The Private Life of the Rabbit". Of course it is not merely the depth and wealth of description which sets this aside as an adult book. The broad story-line of Watership Down concerns a small, ever-changing group of rabbits, led by Hazel and his little brother Fiver, in an attempt to escape their warren.
It is a serious business to leave a safe home and risk living in a vast world of unknown predators. There is no evident threat; Sandleford Warren is secure, stable and happy. Why should they leave? Thus we have conflict from the very start. We also have an other-worldly dimension, since Fiver has a strange premonition of doom coming to their warren. And Hazel, although the dominant one of the two, believes and respects Fiver for his inexplicable, almost psychic, abilities, since they are often right.
Fiver is runtish, often very twitchy and full of foreboding. He cannot explain his feelings, and dark dread of a catastrophic event for the warren, even to himself. But his prophetic visions always mysteriously carry conviction. And his main vision, of a rabbit paradise, is a positive one which urges the rabbits to keep steadfast.
Wouldn't that be worth a journey? Hazel is less intelligent and ingenious than some rabbits, yet he is a born leader. Bigwig, the freedom-fighter, is stronger and bigger than Hazel, but Hazel makes a much better leader because he can think for the whole group, and is able to see immediately how to work cooperatively and use each member of the group's special skills, in order to best benefit them all.
For instance it is higher-achieving rabbits such as Blackberry, who can work out how to free rabbits living in a hutch, or how to use a boat. We see that clever rabbits value ingenuity over intellectualism even though none of them can actually count to five.
It is unnatural for rabbits to travel overland together away from their safe warren. Throughout the book the author refers to any unnatural behaviour for rabbits, through the characters' own self-knowledge. He keeps very close to their instinct-driven psychology, instead of heavily anthropomorphising. This is one of the great strengths of the book; its total believability in the scenario — the world — of the book. We humans too have a view of what is "natural" behaviour, and sometimes our innate natures are different from the norm, or we choose to behave differently.
This depth of exploration into the characters' individual strengths and determination, and how they bond through a series of adventures, makes for an absorbing read.
Also inserted into the story are a series of little stories about a rabbit folk-hero, "El-Ahrairah". Here you may recognise heroes from many ancient cultures, stories told down the millennia; and there's even a smattering of "Brer Rabbit" 's cunning and ingenuity in there too. If you were a child of the Seventies, perhaps you were among the millions who devoured the book. Or maybe you were taken to the cinema to see the infamous film adaptation, which terrified an entire generation so thoroughly that for the next one, millennials, 'Watership Down' became synonymous with peril.
Nearly 50 years have passed, and Richard Adams' cautionary tale remains starkly relevant. Adams, who would have been this week, was a civil servant for most of his life, working in housing, local government and eventually in the Department of the Environment and hailing from Berkshire. He leads a group of rabbits away from the apparent safety of their warren to find a new one.
Part of the reason why Watership Down has endured is because the story it tells has gained new resonance with each passing decade. I simply wrote down a story I told to my little girls. Please start now! Seven publishers rejected the finished manuscript; the disappointment became so unbearable that Adams resorted to sending his wife to collect the returned copy. But once it was published, the reviews glowed.
Copies sold beyond the original print run of 2, by many multiples, making it a near-instant bestseller. And he has remained so. Adams went on to write a further 19 books, among them Plague Dogs and, sequel to his first, Tales from Watership Down.
Pre-empting the rise of Extinction Rebellion and against a backdrop of the rise of right-wing politics the world over, that latest version felt particularly pertinent. Adams may only have wanted to tell a story about rabbits, but it is one that continues to play against the issues of the day. I felt it was absolutely critical. And his daughters agreed. Plus other revelations from the author and actor's conversation with Dolly Alderton about his new food memoir, Taste — captured in the latest episode of the Penguin Podcast.
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