A hare's Breadth from death

By: Daniel D III

Watership down, a Book by Richard Adams (Author as other stories such as The Plague dogs: a novel, shardik, MAIA and many others.)  spins us a wonderfully dark tale from what is seemingly the most innocent creature to grace the earth, a rabbit. We follow our main characters Fiver and Hazel and a myriad of other rabbits as they leave their home, fearing its security and looking for someplace safe from impending doom. Along their way death comes very graphically from every angle, not giving the group anything to hold onto but the hope that they can see their journey through to the end. Richards give us an interesting ride and a few lessons in suspense as the group slowly begins to dwindle. Will our heroes make it to Watership Down? Or will they die trying?

Tagging a genre onto this story is actually very hard, the rabbits converse and live but other than that it does nothing else that's beyond the natural. Rabbits die in again very graphic ways but it holds the same kind of charm as an adventure book. The only way I could describe it is an amalgamation of genres. There's a little horror, there's a little adventure, there's a little fantasy, all blending together in a way that makes me think this could be an actual civilization. It's a very grim and dark imagining of a world of rabbits, but it's a damn good one.

As for the pros and the cons of the book, there isn't much I can say towards disliking it. It's a very well thought out and well written book, by a man who knew what he was doing when he was world building. The story, characters, and details shine through as Mr. Adams paints a fully fleshed out civilization of rabbits. Not to mention but they also have well explained faiths and myths to help the reader get submerged into the story entirely. The conversations feel natural and the world feels lived in.

That being said no book is perfect and there are a few things that are of note. He introduces buckets of characters really quickly, he's not afraid to kill characters off but sometimes you forget a name and then when the character reappears you have to backtrack to find out who they were. Also on the subject of explanation sometimes there's too much of a good thing. Sometimes the explanations drone on and on for a bit and take a little bit away from the story as a whole. But that is about as far as the problems go, the rest of it is a riveting and even haunting experience that never really stops rolling from page one to the end.

So what's my opinion? Well of course you should read it. The classics are classics for a reason and most things with such a prestigious title is usually well worth it. However some forewarning: this is not the kind of book you read if you want to cheer yourself up or read your kids to sleep. Though tame by today's standards of TV violence it's still a very graphic and dark book. If you're looking foreward to a story of classic exile, courage, and survival. Then watership down is definitely the book for you!