Watership Down - a Review

 

Watership Down by Richard Adams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’ve had this book for years. My kids read it way before I did. I finally got around to it.

Adams is a GREAT storyteller. He knows how to slow the pace for dramatic effect at the cliffhanger points. He can tell a story within a story, even 3 or 4 layers down.

The rabbit warren of Efrafa was clearly modeled after totalitarian states, while Hazel’s community was free and open. (He wrote in the early 1970s). No one was allowed to leave Efrafa and the feedings were strictly regimented. Fertility was almost nonexistent as a result. Hazel’s band, on the other hand, left a warren about to be destroyed by human development (a common 1970s theme). They have a sort of exodus, crossing a river, and a desert, and finding their way to a new promised land on Watership Down.

But the Egyptians pursue. And Adams keeps it suspenseful till the end who was going to win. Would it be Orwell’s 1984 at the end, where the jackboot is successfully applied to the protagonist, who is forced to submit to the dictator’s regime? Or would freedom win out? I’m not going to say – you should read it yourself.

I don’t know anything about Adams, but he seemed to be a naturalist – he keeps up the rabbit psychology throughout to stunning effect. Anxiety. Fear. Sensitivity to danger. But he also depicts the various human personae in them. The dictatorial based on pure strength (Woundwort). The prophetic keen on insight (Fiver). The leader who can decide what to do (Hazel). The strategic and loyal soldiers (Dandelion and Holly).

The need for does to carry on the community is particularly intriguing. They only realize this halfway through, and it is a shock to the system. Without women, we cannot carry on. In their own animal way, Adams shows us this human need. Yes they are weaker, they need protection and guidance through terrible trials. But they carry us forward in ways the bucks cannot on their own. Definitely not politically correct in our day.

This is a good book, a great story. I commend it to you. 3 stars.

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