Watership Down

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book
Review: While in college and then grad school, I didn't have much opportunity to read books for pleasure. After I finished, I started looking for works or authors I might enjoy. I didn't have much luck. My girlfriend then gave me a copy of Watership Down for Christmas. It had been one of her favorite books, but I had never read it. As soon as I started, I didn't want to put it down. The characters and story are terrific. It instantly became one of my favorite books. I've read a number of books since that I've also enjoyed, but none more so than Watership Down. I realize it is often considered a book for children or teenagers, but I don't think there are many people of any age that wouldn't enjoy this book. I would recommend it to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: The Rabbit World.....
Review: (On an aside, one person noted that the high school students were panning the book? I am a freshman who had to read this for her Honors English class, and I found it highly interesting. Then again, I am a bibliophile. Many people in my class find it cool as well, so generalization gets you nowhere.)

Fiver predicts the downfall of the Sandleford warren, where he is an "outskirter". To understand these terms you need to know the basic structure of a warren.

~Chief Rabbit, who, obviously, is the chief. He's kind of pampered by the ...

Owsla. A small army of sorts, who run the warren and check for dangers.

They also get the Chief fresh lettuce, as he doesn't "silflay" (Lapine word for "eating food above ground").

There's everyone else, the outskirters.

Anyway, Fiver and Hazel, his friend, get together a small band to leave the warren. They encounter many, many things along the way, like Cowslip's warren, where nothing is really what it seems. And they come to where they'll make their warren...

Watership Down.

Rating:
Summary: It's a classic, how can you not love a classic?
Review: Well, I loved this book well enough in grade school, and junior high, but by the end of High School the re-readability was just about nil.

While the story itself is grand, the barely hidden commentary on human societies gets a little annoying (once you realize what you are reading). Much like Narnia, this book started to loose interest as soon as I realised what the Author was tying to do.

Ah, to be young again... ^_~

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Book.
Review: This book is the story of a party of young travelers who flee their doomed homeland, seeking to establish a new home for themselves. The characters, are, as you've probabally heard by now, wild rabbits, but unlike most novels about animals, this one avoids the traps of sentimentality and anthropomorphism. The rabbits are taken seriously as characters - they have a well-developed culture and mythology and a distinctly lapine psychology. Mr. Adams did his homework for this one, and the result is a very interesting blend of rabbit lore and human athropology - some of the best parts of the book are the stories the rabbits tell of their culture hero El-ahrairah. No twee, Redwall-esque bunnies here, no sir.

This book is one of my favorites; I read it once every couple of years, and it never looses it's charm. Highly reccomended.

Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Book.
Review: I finished reading this book today. I simply loved it! It is a book for all ages. A rabbit named Fiver predicts the downfall of his warren, and he and his brother gather followers and try to make their way to the downs so they may start a new warren. It was a wonderful fanasty-adventure story,a real page-turner. One of the things I liked about this story was that there was no hero; all the rabbits had an ability and helped the warren. My favorite parts had to do with another warren called Efrafa. The Lapine (the rabbit language) glossary and the quotes at the beginning of each chapter were special bonuses!

Rating:
Summary: Beauty in Unexpected Places
Review: As my brother had said (see below) I had never planned on reading this book. He had just finished it and said it was great so I decided to give it a try. I didn't have a good attitude towards it at first, but I got really into it after about page 20. Although the book is about a group of rabbits and they're quest, its very hard to differentiate between the rabbits and humans. Recomended for everyone

Rating:
Summary: A classic tale of adventure
Review: I had never planned to read this book, but I needed a book to read for school and I found this on my shelf. I flat-out loved it. It is the story of a groups of rabbits, one of whom predicts danger for the warren. With his brother and everyone they can get to come, they trek across the english countryside looking for a new home, encountering many problems and trouble along the way. Some have called it a political allegory, and although the author Richard Adams has denied this, allusions can definetly be made to fascism and communism. A well developed book, with a structered plot leading up to a brilliant climax, I would reccomend this book to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: A Killer Rabbit to make Monty Python proud
Review: Richard Adams's quirky masterpiece is what you might have gotten if J.R.R. Tolkien had written _Wind in the Willows_. It's a book that would have made C.S. Lewis weep tears of joy, if he had lived long enough to read it. This is the epic story of a group of rabbits who wander across the English countryside looking for a place to found a new warren, after their old home has been destroyed by developers. For once, the word "epic" really is warranted. _Watership Down_ has many echoes of classical literature. The basic story line resembles Virgil's _Aeneid_--the apocalyptic destruction of an established society and the flight of a group of exiles to establish a new home, guided by prophecy and beset by dangers. As with the _Aeneid_, the second half of _Watership Down_ is taken up with the rabbits' attempts to establish their new home, and their struggles with their neighbors, both human and animal. Like the early Romans (though this story comes not from Virgil but from Livy) the rabbits are all male and have to abduct females from elsewhere, and this brings them into conflict with the viciously formidable General Woundwort, a rabbit dictator of great personal valour combined with utter ruthlessness (who could easily have been the model for the Killer Rabbit of Monty Python fame). General Woundwort's totalitarian warren is one of the two obvious pieces of allegorical satire in the book. The other concerns a society of fat, decadent rabbits who have forgotten the ancient myths of their people and live a life of ease tinged with a fear that they don't dare to name--a chilling portrait of our own society, surely. But most of the book can be enjoyed without thinking of such things. Adams has created a world with meticulous detail--the only greater achievement along this line in modern literature is the _Lord of the Rings_. The rabbit myths, customs, and language seem utterly real. Like all the best animal fantasies, _Watership Down_ gives you rabbits who are both extremely human and extremely rabbitlike. Adams's character portrayal is impeccable, and his style has exactly the range and power needed--grandiloquent at one moment and tenderly mock-heroic at another. For anyone who loves imaginative literature, this is a book that must be read.

Rating:
Summary: My all time favorite
Review: What an imaginitive mind Richard Adams posesses! I first saw the film of this as a child and while viewing it I remember being surprised that my mother let me watch it, considering I was a HUGE animal lover and for an animated film about wild rabbits there was a good amount of gore and she wouldnt let me see Bambi or Dumbo because she knew how upset I would be over it. But years later when I was in my teens and I read the book "watership down" I realize she let me see it because it was true to nature, with a fictional aspect. The animated film was so memorable to me. The book is even more memorible. This is one of those books that you have on a book shelf and you read it again and again over the years because it is so well written. In the years to follow after seeing the film I have had numerous rabbits and they have all been named after the characters from Watership down. Basically this story is what Mr. Adams would percieve the life of a wild rabbit, threated by other animals, commercial building, traffic etc. bringing life and realism to the hares. It is a wonderful read.

Rating:
Summary: An Action-Packed, Thrilling Adventure Story
Review: Watership Down is an amazing, action packed book about a group of rabbits that leave their warren and go on a rigorous journey to settle in a new peaceful warren. The rabbits travel from their own warren because one of he rabbits named Fiver has a feeling that something bad is going to happen. The rabbit's brother, Hazel believes Fiver because Fiver has been known o predict things that have come true. A band of rabbits joins Fiver and Hazel to go on the journey. Some join because they are friends and others join because they don't like life in the warren. The story describes how this group of rabbits handle working together to stay alive, and dangerous situations. The rabbits travel alone over the open English countryside trying to avoid predators and unfriendly rabbits both trying to kill anything that crosses their paths. I liked the suspense and all the tragic events that occurred over the course of the story. The parts when the rabbits are hiding from predators and when they barely out run enemy rabbits. And when the rabbits hear news that their old warren has been destroyed and everyone died. Most chapter books will be long and have no interesting parts but this book is the opposite. The Author holds your attention through out the whole book and never leaves you bored. I gave this a five on the reading list because of action, sadness, and yet happiness. It has many sad parts like when one of the rabbits dies or get hurt. Yet all of a sudden the mood changes when they realize the rabbit is not dead, just badly hurt. They all jump for joy and there is a happy mood restored to the story. I advise this book to anyone who likes action and survival stories. And, oh yeah this book is told from the rabbits' point of view, so there are words you have never heard of. But there is a dictionary in the back of the book that tells you what the words mean.