Review 16: Watership Down

Watership Down by Richard Adams

This is one of my top five books. Whenever anyone asks me, "What is your favorite book?" this is at or near the top. It was the first adult-length book I read when I was in Elementary school, and I have every intention of getting my hands on a copy for my goddaughter at some point soon. I remember watching the movie when they used to show it annually on CBS, way back in those days beyond recall....

Why should this book, of all the books I've ever read in my life, stay so dear to me? I have no idea. Perhaps because, even though its main characters are rabbits, it isn't a "talking animals" book. Adams didn't talk down to his readers, and assumed that they were ready to follow Hazel and Fiver wherever they went. And so, unusually for children's literature, there is violence and loss and true danger in this book. Characters die. Unpleasantly. The rabbits live in fear of mankind and the Thousand, and accomplish great things despite. They do what no rabbit had done before, and find a new world for themselves. And, of course, are forced to fight for it.

Our heroes, you see, are living an idyllic life in a warren in England. They do what rabbits do - eat, sleep, mate, and entertain themselves. But one rabbit, Fiver, can see more clearly than others. He can sense danger, and grasp the shape of the future, and he knows that any rabbit who stays where they are will certainly die. With his brother, Hazel, Fiver and a small group of rabbits leave their home.

They do what rabbits never do - they explore. They go through dense woods and cross streams. They hide among gardens and search for the best place they can find to set up their new warren - a safe place, high in the hills, where they can see all around and the ground is dry. They seek to build a new society, as so many humans have done in our history.

And what's more, they try to build the best society that they can. The need leadership, yes, but how much? How much freedom should the ordinary rabbit have to live its life? This question becomes more and more important when they meet the cruel General Woundwort, de facto leader of the warren known as Efrafa.

The battle that they have, choosing between personal liberty and the safety of the warren, is emblematic of so many struggles that have gone on in our world, and continue today. Through a tale about rabbits, Adams manages to tell us about ourselves, which is the mark of a great writer.

As cynical as I have become in my years, I still find this story to be honest and true. Adams isn't trying to make an allegory or grind an axe. He's trying to tell a good story about hope and perseverance and triumph over adversity, a story with - as Tolkien put it, "applicability" - that we can overlay onto our own lives and experiences. The fact that the main characters are rabbits is incidental.

Well, not really. Another layer to this story is the culture that Adams has created. The stories of Frith and El-ahrairah (which, I've just noticed, is misprinted on the first page of the contents in this edition as "El-ahrairah." Weird) are sometimes deep and meaningful, sometimes fun and silly, but always relevant and rich, in the tradition of oral storytelling. There is a language to the rabbits, which is regularly used throughout the book (and one complete sentence in lapine - Silflay hraka u embleer rah. Memorable....) Adams did a lot of research into the social structure of rabbits and their lifestyles, making it as accurate is it could be....

Anyway, every young person should read this. Hell, older people should read it too. Every time I read the story, it moves me. I can hear the voices of the characters clearly and see what they see. I am inspired by the steadfastness of Hazel, the strength of Bigwig and the resolve of Blackavar. I find qualities in these characters that I would like to possess, and that's as good a reason as any to love a book.

As a side note, this book is the reason I got into Magic: The Gathering way back in college. For a long time, I thought it was just a stupid card game, with no cultural or imaginative merit. Then I happened across a "Thunder Spirit" card, which had a quote from Watership Down at the bottom:



"It was full of fire and smoke and light and...it drove between us and the Efrafans like a thousand thunderstorms with lightning."

Still gives me goosebumps.

Anyway, I thought, "Maybe there's something to this," and the rest was (very expensive) history....

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"All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first, they must catch you, digger, listener, runner. Prince with a swift warning. Be cunning and your people will never be destroyed."
- Frith, Watership Down
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Watership Down at Wikipedia
Richard Adams at Wikipedia
Watership Down at Amazon.com