Most of my friends look back to JRR Tolkien or George Lucas
as the authors of the greatest epic fantasies ever created, but for me, it is
Richard Adams. His Watership Down is the epic fantasy to which I compare all others. What’s that? You
thought Watership Down was just that cute
book about rabbits? Just one of the first in a long line of anthropomorphic
fiction? No, it is so much more—more than
the allegorical implications of Animal Farm, more than the quest and adventure
of Erin Hunter's various series, and more than the rich
characterization and world-building of Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows. No, Watership Down is
complexly written, intricately plotted, and emotionally nuanced novel about a
bunch of rabbits. I swear it’s awesome.
Richard Adams’s book is about a quest as epic and enormous
as that of Virgil’s Aeneas— that of the rabbits Fiver and Hazel, and their brave
and desperate search for a new warren. The plot falls naturally from the
actions of the characters, all stemming from a mysterious beginning. Fiver, the
runt of his litter, has a premonition: the warren where they all live will soon
be destroyed. Fiver is small, and often ignored, but his brother Hazel believes
in his brother’s visions. Hazel and Fiver and a few others leave to found a new
warren, one that is safe and promising. It is their quest to find a new home
that establishes the backbone of their epic journey. Along the way, they
encounter rabbits good and bad, terrifying beasts, and struggles nearly too
much to bear.
There’s actually lots to be made of the mythic qualities of
this book—the comparisons to the Aeneid is justified by more than surface
comparisons—but I hate to lean on that too hard. This isn’t a literature paper
after all, it’s a review. However, the book resonates with old themes, and that’s
why it isn’t simply a bunny adventure tale. No, the risks these characters
take, the pains they feel both in body and mind, their triumphs and failures are
about as human as they come. I know this sounds hyperbolic, but the book is
just so good. I haven’t really re-read much of the fiction I first encountered
in high school, but this book is one I go back to again and again, and discover
new riches and depths every time.
Find it at your local library, or here.
3 comments :
This is my absolute favorite book.
My daughter has been trying to tell me for the last ten years that this is the best book ever. I always have trouble with talking animals, and just have trouble with warring bunnies!
Like all fantasies, those things that separate us from the characters (be they aliens, or elves, or bunnies) fade, and yet the specifics of their situation inform their actions and drives the emotional weight of the narrative-- it's the fact that they're rabbits that makes finding a warren so epic. Or, put a better way, you won't think of them as bunnies because Adams renders their lives so vividly
Post a Comment