Watership Down

Rating:
Summary: Okay
Review: Okay, but deals too much with environmental stuff. Also, I disliked the character Fiver

Rating:
Summary: Among the best books in the world. Period.
Review: It's difficult to translate the plot and feel of an epic into a form that younger readers can enjoy, but that's just what Richard Adams has done here.

Watership Down tells the story of a group of rabbits who, driven by the forebodings of a psychic bunny named Fiver, decide to abandon their warren and strike out on their own to found a new rabbit community. The group of rabbits set out on a long and perilous journey, encountering every type of danger imaginable, and must pool their various talents under the leadership of the noble Hazel to survive.

Something about these rabbits is so amazingly real that it's impossible not to get wrapped up in their lives. Adams has given them the power of speech and the ability to plan ahead, but they possess severe limitations that make their interactions seem realistic. Along the way, they find other rabbit warrens that have their own way of doing things, and Hazel's little band must find a way to forge a rabbit utopia that avoids the pitfalls of the societies they face.

The ending involves climactic battle scenes with General Woundwort, a militaristic dictator who embodies bunny evil.

Each of the rabbits in Hazel's group has a distinct personality that goes beyond embodiment of a stereotypical character trait. You will love each of them in turn, and also come to appreciate the culture in which they operate, complete with rabbit-only words and folk tales that resonate with meaning.

Watership Down has the intelligence of a literary classic, and the accessibility of a great and moving read. This is the perfect book to transition a young reader from children's books to adult novels, and I wasn't at all surprised to hear that it has become a staple in some classrooms.

Great books like this may only come into your reach once in a lifetime. I suggest that you grasp this one, and hold on.


Rating:
Summary: High School Required Reading (A Rare Find)
Review: I was required to read this book for high school English. I assumed that I would hate it, though I loved to read. A really long book about rabbits? I thought, "You've got to be kidding."

Anyway, I just loved the book and it was one time that I actually kept up with (and even got ahead of) my homework.

This book is a classic fantasy. It tells the story of a band of rabbits (from their perspective) that need to find a new home because theirs is being destroyed by humans for land development.

You grow to love the characters and truly care about their plight.

Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Story! Everyone Should Read This Book!
Review: This is truly one the greatest books of our time. The characters are deep and you care for them, and anyone who has heard of this book has to mention the hero: Hazel. He is one of the greatest characters I have ever read and a wonderful leader for this group of rabbits. This book is not necessarily an "easy" read but one you will have great satisfaction from. The ending you will leave you with tears in your eyes. Out of all the books you have ever read, you will remember this one.

Rating:
Summary: The best book ever!
Review: This is my favorite book outside of the horror genre. It is full of social and political undertones, beautifully described, and well researched into the nature of wild rabbits.

I tend to avoid most animal books because they usually focus around one or two animal heros that meet some tragic untimely doom and their human owner or whatever cries and buries them, etc. etc. you get my point. This book has it's share of death and tragedy but it also has it's share of triumphs and rescues. It is a saga of short lived creatures, so in rabbit terms - it's practically generational. Tragedy befalls us all at some time or another. This book deals it's blows in natural doses. It's easier to take that way.

If you are considering reading it, please do. I don't even think of it as a childrens novel, though I supposed they could read it if they were intelligent enough to understand the underlying themes.

Rating:
Summary: Not for the faint of heart
Review: I was first introduced to this book in seventh grade. We referred to it as the dreaded, hated, despised bunny book. I was much too young to even begin to understand the deaper meanings of this book or to appreciate it in the least bit. I have now revisited it as an adult. It's as if the light bulb came on. It all makes sense to me now.

Richard Adams does an amazing job of explaining the inner workings of the rabbit world. You learn new vocabulary and begin to appreciate the complexity of nature (Yes I know it's ficiton, but for a second you can almost imagine this is all real, and that's the beauty of the book.) This is another one of those books that just because you are capable of reading the words does not mean you are capable of understanding the book. This should not be read to seventh graders or junior high for that matter unless you are an excpetional teacher and/or have exceptional students.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful read for kids and adults
Review: When I went off for my first semester of college my father gave me $100 with which to buy textbooks, which certainly dates me. After buying everything for my classes I had enough money left over to buy a hard cover copy of "Watership Down" by Richard Adams for $6.95, which for people who love books is certainly a great way of representing the ravages of inflation over the years. I decided to read a chapter of "Watership Down" each night before going to bed, thereby marking the beginning of my obsession with reading a chapter of something each day that has nothing to do with school. When my dorm roommate became as hooked on the story as much as I was he and I would read chapters aloud. Fifty days I got to the book's epilogue with the same sort of sadness that it was all over that I experienced getting to the end of the "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

Living in the Sandleford Warren with its Chief Rabbit and Owsla maintaining a comfortable social order, Hazel and his little brother Fiver are content enough. But Fiver has the gift of prophecy, and when he warns that the warren has to be abandoned right away or they are all going to die, Hazel and a small circle of friends believe him and leave despite the fact that have no idea where they are going. Fiver envisions a great high place where they can be happy and safe, but there are a series of imposing obstacles to overcome, from not only humans and predators, but other wild rabbits as well. Consequently the basic story of "Watership Down" is the ancient quest for home, although in this case it is a new home that represents a wild rabbit's idea of utopia.

The greatness of "Watership Down" rests on the sense of realism that Adams brings to his story wild rabbits. Adams studied Lapine life in R. M. Lockley's "The Private Life of the Rabbit" in order to keep his rabbits real. But beyond the way rabbits live in nature Adams provides them with a history and a culture, represented not only in the stories they tell of El-ahrairah (the Prince with a Thousand Enemies), but their beliefs in Frith the lord sun, and their simple games such as bob-stones. When confronted with sticky situations they are able to use their ingenuity to come up with surprising solutions that are still within the realm of possibility for real rabbits. I always liked the way Hazel, Blackberry and the others have to work out these puzzles, straining for a leap of intuition and cognitive insight that seems just beyond the reach of their relatively simple minds. So while these rabbits are capable of doing more than others of their kind, Adams keeps their efforts remarkable rather than magical.

We also pick up a few choice words from the language of the rabbits (e.g., "silflay" is to go above ground to feed, "homba is a fox), which ends up paying off with one of my favorite moments in the book when Bigway utters a simple but effective curse. The lesson of the story is clearly that bigger does not mean better, for Hazel is neither the strongest nor the smartest of the rabbits that he leads, but he had the best qualities of leadership. Each of the rabbits that join Hazel on the quest to find Watership Down and build a new life there offers something to the ground, and the distinctive personalities that Adams creates for each of them adds to the novel as well.

Of all the books that I have that I like to pick up from time to time and read again my favorite parts, "Watership Down" is the oldest. As a children's story is it simply one that is too good for most children, but without the deep allegorical elements that afflict so many other great children's stories. Perhaps that is why this novel has become so beloved, because it speaks to the child in all of us and the simple virtues that we all want the world to embody. Having read the book again from start to finish, I was not surprised to find that it is still as good as I thought it was when I first read it many years ago.