 | Price Comparisons: Rental | | Sorry, the textbook you were looking for is not available as Rental, at any of the stores we searched. | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | Watership Down has been a staple of high-school English classes for years. Despite the fact that it's often a hard sell at first (what teenager wouldn't cringe at the thought of 400-plus pages of talking rabbits?), Richard Adams's bunny-centric epic rarely fails to win the love and respect of anyone who reads it, regardless of age. Like most great novels, Watership Down is a rich story that can be read (and reread) on many different levels. The book is often praised as an allegory, with its analogs between human and rabbit culture (a fact sometimes used to goad skeptical teens, who resent the challenge that they won't "get" it, into reading it), but it's equally praiseworthy as just a corking good adventure. The story follows a warren of Berkshire rabbits fleeing the destruction of their home by a land developer. As they search for a safe haven, skirting danger at every turn, we become acquainted with the band and its compelling culture and mythos. Adams has crafted a touching, involving world in the dirt and scrub of the English countryside, complete with its own folk history and language (the book comes with a "lapine" glossary, a guide to rabbitese). As much about freedom, ethics, and human nature as it is about a bunch of bunnies looking for a warm hidey-hole and some mates, Watership Down will continue to make the transition from classroom desk to bedside table for many generations to come. --Paul Hughes |
Average Customer Rating:   Never thought I'd be so intrigued with rabbits. At first I was hesitant to read a book with all animal characters but my girlfriend really recommended it to me, so I began. I'm a firm believer in writing style and authors mattering more than the story itself. I'm not saying the story is bad - because it's a very good one - but the author's creativity and writing style are what I loved about this book. This is a very fun book to read and it's far more exciting than I expected a book of it's nature to be. I highly recommend for all ages - especially adults since it seems like it may be perceived as a book for the youth. excellent most definitly a 5 star review. loved the book. brilliant mind to come up with this type of literary masterpiece. talking rabbits, that isnt a book for children. brilliant. i highly recommend it. rather high-toned for a book full of talking animals! I suppose my threshold for silliness for books with talking animals (particularly bunnies) is "The Wind in the Willows." Anything more sophisticated than that is preposterous, I think.
Nevertheless, this aims to go several degrees more sophisticated than that. It succeeds in parts, but on the whole, it's hard to take it seriously unless you're a pre-teen girl. But if you are, good luck with the language.
Now, maybe I just waited too long to read this. I had wanted to ever since I was a kid but never got around to it until middle age. Sure, I've seen the cartoon on which it was based years ago, but didn't think much of it. I was assured by those who had read it, however, that the book was much better (and deeper!). I guess I'm glad I didn't read this as a teenager: I think I would have given up after a few chapters. For a book with a bunch of talking animals, it contains an unreasonably high level of prose.
There's another reason it was hard to get into: I've lived in cities all my life, so much so that I've never even seen a wooden fence, much less a cow. (I think maybe once I saw a squirrel.) Sad, I know; but the point is, much of the bucolic terms were completely flat to me: marjoram? meadowsweet? thistle bloom? kingcups? watercress? It's like you need a PhD in Botany to understand what's going on. (The cynic in me suspects the author doesn't know either, and was simply writing with Newcomb's Wildflower Guide propped open next to the typewriter.)
There are points in the book's favor: the action is swift and things are helped along by short chapters. But Adams's characterization must be accounted a minus: there's plenty of rabbits along for the exodus, but it's hard to tell them apart.
Worse, though, is the sustained pretension of Lapine, the language of Adams's bunnies. Why not just "translate" everything into English? At one point (p. 15), we're told the rabbits are going to "meet again here, fu Inle." What does "fun Inle" mean? A helpful glossary at the back of the book tells us: it means "after moonrise." What did it add to include the original expression? Why couldn't Adams have just written "after moonrise"? Why is that particular expression rendered in the original Lapine, but not others, such as "Is it true?" "Who is this?" and "Over the hill"?
I'll tell you why: because the interlarded Lapine, like so much else in the book, symbolizes the flowery affectation in which the whole thing is steeped. Bunnies Galore! Going into this book, all I knew was that it was a classic that was about talking bunnies. Now, I've never been a big fan of rabbits, but I decided to give this a try anyway. I mean a five hundred page book about rabbits? I had to see what this was all about.
After the initial charm wore off, I was bored. I found all the rabbits to be interchangeable, and some of their folklore confusing. But, it got better as it went on, especially those final 200 hundred pages. I found some of their chapter-long fables distracting, as well as a sudden switch to the human world. There would be random comments about baseball or something to describe a situation, and it would draw me out of the story. I also didn't like the portrayal of does as just sex-objects, which would make me have less sympathy for the rabbits plight. I have to say, for the most part, I forgot they were bunnies. The writing was easily read, and it wasn't to hard to follow. If I was a tad smarter, I could figure out all the parallels between bunny warrens and human government, but I'm too lazy for that.
Even though it is usually marketed as a young adult book, I think anyone can enjoy it. Overall, it was a enjoyable fantasy and quite epic. Marvelous & Enduring: Rabbits Never Were So Brave Hazel lives with his smaller brother, Fiver, in the Sandleford Warren with lots of other bucks and does organized around the Chief Rabbit and his Owsla (a group of guard rabbits). Fiver's a bit of a prophetic and has odd, sometimes unintelligible visions. One such vision is of a terrible danger coming to the warren and in his fear and conviction convinces Hazel the Chief Rabbit must be notified. In order for the warren to be safe, an evacuation order must be made. Unfortunately, neither Hazel nor Fiver is believed. However, hope is not lost: one by one rabbits start to appear in support of Fiver and are willing to follow the two in their journey to escape the unknown danger and start their own warren. Along the way they run into rivers, foxes, gulls, mice, cats, a dog, traps, unknown devices made by man, and strange new rabbits.
When I tried explaining what this book was about to my brother, it came out something like this, "It's about a bunch of bunnies and they're trying to find a spot to make a good warren and then they realize, `hey, we need some does' so they try and find some does and then there's these other vengeful bunnies with lots of extra girl rabbits but they don't want anyone taking them and then..."
That's not too coherent, but in a nutshell Watership Down can be broken into a few parts: fleeing the warren, settling into Watership Down, needing does to fill the Honeycomb, and the journey that takes them to hell and back just to get some, as Kehaar would put it "mudders." It can't just be about that though (well, it can be, but it isn't), and so the adventures of Fiver and Hazel are enormous and test the very strengths and weaknesses of lapine endurance, friendship, and ingenuity. Initially, the group sets out with 10 additional rabbits (even the Chief Rabbit's nephew comes along) and grows, by the end of the book, to 32, plus kittens (baby rabbits). I thought keeping track of twelve rabbits with distinct personalities and dialogue was hard to do. Richard Adams kept throwing more into the mix! To make it even better (or worse, but really he's adorable), there's also Kehaar, a gull with an Austrian accent Hazel and Fiver's warren befriends, and an unnamed mouse companion.
The large cast of characters aside, Hazel and Fiver have a lot to contend with themselves as they cross the wide unknown, but they have a few advantages on their side: bravery and open mindedness. Those are, I think, two of the most powerful ideas behind Watership Down. As the group first sets out, they encounter their first obstacle: a small river. There's a lot of confusion, wariness, and a bit of despair as the rabbits feel the limitations of their own traditional methods of travel. Everyone is tired and afraid; no one wants to cross, even though they can swim perfectly well; no one wants to leave little Pipkin and Fiver--the youngest and most exhausted of the bunch--behind. With a little bit of ingenuity and some convincing, they fashion a raft out of a piece of driftwood and float the pair across. I make it sound more simple than it actually was (in one sense, it's quite simple). That's the beauty of Richard Adams' writing: he turns a small river crossing into a test of skill and intelligence, the first challenge that forces the rabbits to act in very un-rabbit-like ways to save themselves. They confront their sense of propriety and overcome expectations in this, only the first obstacle to reach Watership Down.
Hazel and Fiver's group are pioneers and radical in their ideas and methods (does aren't the only rabbits that can dig out a warren). They go against tradition but never once compromise their integrity or resort to fighting when talking will do just as well, if not better. Everyone is kind and patient, but most of all: welcoming.
I really adored the spirit of each rabbit--Adams writes from the intimate knowledge that inordinate amounts of research and devotion brings and uses terminology and descriptions that are innately natural to lapine movement. He not only convinces us their gestures are those of rabbits, but that from the very depths of their being they are calling forth some collective rabbitness that turns out to be the very core of sentient creatures everywhere. With beautiful passages such at this:
"When several creatures--men or animals--have worked together to overcome something offering resistance and have at last succeeded, there follows often a pause--as though they felt the propriety of paying respect to the adversary who has put up so good a fight."
p. 215 Watership Down, Scribner Trade edition
Adams invites a contemplation that goes beyond rabbits pulling down a hutch door. Their efforts are appreciated long after we stop to consider the absurdity that Adam has imbued with such gravity. The actions of rabbits are on a rabbit-scale; Blackberry and Bigwig (my favorite, aside from Kehaar) have tackled a new, strong adversary and won. In thinking of their feat we must consider a time when we, too, have felt the pause of success Adams refers to. As the moment comes to us, finally we understand and so believe in their courage. As the door falls, we may see a little rabbit in ourselves--that part of us that, like those of the Honeycomb, is all "warm hearts and brave spirits" (p. 279).
If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend Watership Down. |  |
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