Watership Down

Rating:
Summary: The worst book i have ever read!
Review: I really did not enjoy Watership Down. As a student in juinor high school it was very boring to read. I did not want to read a book about rabbits and their problems. The book did not match my interests, so it made me dislike it even more. If i didnt have to do a project on it, i would not have finished reading the book.

Rating:
Summary: It will make you think
Review: This novel is without a doubt the best ever written. It is a book that will make you think about life and death. When I found out about it I thought that it might be a little silly. But after I began to read it I realized how wrong I had been about thinking it was going to be silly. It was anything but silly. Watership Down makes you see what it is like from an animals point of view. I thought this story was sad but very good. If I could rate it more than 5 stars I would. Do not hesitate to buy this book. Buy it because you won't regret it.

Rating:
Summary: An unmitigated masterpiece
Review: It was Sunday night, I needed to pick an Outside Reading Book for English class the next morning. On my shelf I spotted Watership Down, a book I never was interested in reading. Nonetheless, I chose it out of neccesity, and computed that to get through the tedium I expected it to be, I would have to read 3 chapters a night. I sat down and began to read...but there was no chance I was going to stop reading after 3 chapters. It ensnared me with its depictions of a world we miss, depictions that author Richard Adams illustrates in vibrant detail. I ended up finishing "the bunny book", as my friends dubbed it, in less than 3 days.
All one needs to know about the plot is that one of the characters, Fiver, has a premonition: death and destruction is coming to the warren in which they live, and they must flee or die. Fiver's brother Hazel beleives him, and attempts to convince as many rabbits as they can to leave the warren and save their lives. The vagabonds set out, at the mercy of the overwhelming number of enemies rabbits have, not to mention the cruelty of their own kind.....they set out to find a home, and what a glorious adventure it is.

This book is wonderful on so many levels. It vividly creates characters until the reader feels that he or she can not only understand them, but relate to them and their problems. It not only creates a language for these characters, these rabbits, seemlessly integrated through expository footnotes and a dictionary in the back, but an entire culture as well. The reader learns of the complex rabbit hierarchy, from the despot Chief Rabbits who have their food brought underground to them to the outskirters, "all too accustomed to getting the short end of the stick." We learn of the rabbit's God and Underworld, their folk heroes and their legends. The book is also a political allegory: when one analyses the different warrens, paralells can be seen with Fascism, communism, and other political systems. Adams also puts an applicable quote before each chapter, alluding to past works such as Julius Caesar and Greek Mythology. The quotes are always pertinent and ascertaining how they pertain to the chapter is enjoyable. But on top of all that, this book is an adventure story of the highest order, a truely enthralling piece of literature that is truly the only book that I can say, "I laughed, I cheered, I cried" about. Im not much of a crying man, but Adams' characters are so well drawn it is impossible not to become attached to them.

Please, all of you, do yourself a favor and read Watership Down.

Rating:
Summary: Great.....
Review: At first I was drawn away by the fact the book dealt with rabbits but I read it just the same. I must say it is one of my favorite books now, I am glad that read it. The entire thought process that went into this book is quite amazing....

Rating:
Summary: Rabbits for the Ages - and for other rabbits
Review: I read Watership Down the first time within about 6 months of its release over (sigh) a quarter of a century ago. I re-read it for the several dozenth-time over the Christmas holidays just because I hadn't read it cover to cover for several years.
Watership Down is a spectacular story of heroism and fear, of an overwhelming need to find a home, of glory and battle and of just plain old bunnies. In the end it doesn't matter which level of the book you read - whether deep in the layers of metaphors or shallow in sheer fun of being a rabbit sprinting in the morning dew - Watership Down works. We're all a little bit of Hazel-rah's intellect, and a little bit of Bigwig's courage and a little bit of Fiver's insight and a little bit of everyone who's ever set out on our own to find a new home.
Read it, enjoy it, love it, remember it, use it.

Rating:
Summary: Supremely Imaginative!!!
Review: Without a doubt, this is one of the greatest books I have ever read. There are loads of interesting and varied characters that make each page a fresh experience. The story is both complex and adventurous, detailed and compelling. I recommended this book to a friend of mine and he told me he couldn't get into a story about rabbits. I thought, "That's simplifying the novel." This story has so many themes and countless expressions of emotions involving friendship, death, tyranny, and hope that I was forced to re-evaluate my friend's depth of character. This is a grand adventure filled with memorable moments and thought-provoking analogies about mankind. A brilliant novel.

Rating:
Summary: A Gem
Review: Watership Down is one of those books that leave an indelible impression upon the reader years after reading it. Yet when I re-read it again this past week, I was struck again with fresh wonder at the timelessness of the tale. Watership Down centers upon the extraordinary lives of a motley crew of rabbits. The cast of characters is unforgettable, from the clever and resourceful Hazel, the strong and stouthearted Bigwig, the story-spinning Dandelion, the jocular Bluebell, and the mystical Fiver.

The beautifully wrought prose of Richard Adams reads like poetry at times. He makes the fantastic exploits of the rabbits seem utterly believable. He draws you into their world with masterful craftsmanship, and you can almost actually see, hear and smell the sights, sounds and smells that the rabbits do.

One delightful feature of Watership Down are the tales of the cunning trickster hero El-ahrairah, who has many adventures with his faithful sidekick Rabscuttle. When Dandelion tells the tales of El-ahrairah, one gets a deeper insight into the world of the rabbits by hearing their mythology.

Another tool that Adams uses to draw you into this wondrous world is the creation of rabbit language called 'Lapine'. Rabbit feeding is known as silflay. Moonrise is called fu Inle. Enemies are known as elil. A fox is a homba and more than one fox is hombil. Motorized vehicles, such as cars or trains, are known as hrududu. Paralyzing fear is called 'going tharn'. After a while, reading the Lapine vocabulary becomes almost second nature, but (at least in the hardback version I read) there is a Lapine glossary at the back of the book to help if you forget the meanings of any of the words.

I have not seen the animated adaptation of this book, and I'm a little reluctant to do so, as I worry that it will not live up to what I would expect from a book of this caliber. Watership Down is truly a treasure and I highly recommend it to anyone. Despite the fantastic premise of talking animals, the novel exudes an almost tangible sense of realism. It has more realism than a whimsical book such as The Wind in the Willows. There is trickery and treachery, violence and war, and yes even death at times. But the story can still be enjoyed the young of all ages.

~Sly

Rating:
Summary: A classic
Review: This is the 2nd. or 3rd. time I've read this really very good book by Richard Adams and I like it more each time. It isn't just a book about rabbits, it's a book about life, danger, tragedy, humor, adventure, overcoming adversity , death and legacy. The gamut of one's emotions are touched and it's difficult not to want to finish the book at one sitting. Through Mr. Adams's narrative you can almost experience the warmth of a burrow, the kinship of comrades and the incredible thrill of overcoming obstacles on your path of survival. This is a story that should live forever in the hearts of all adventurers regardless of age.

Rating:
Summary: A classic -- more like Tolkien that Wind in the Willows
Review: This is a book to put on the shelf with The Lord of the Rings and George MacDonald. Like those books, it is a children's story that adults will find great satisfaction in reading.

Like Tolkien, Watership Down is entrancing in its believability. A detailed and natural sense of geography embodies both -- Tolkien invented his; Adams wrote about a real place, an actual Down in the hills of England. Also like Tolkien, Adams has endowed his story with an in-place mythology -- the rabbits have their own age-old stories about gods and heroes and adventures. It's amazing how much the stories of a people show us the character of that people. Some of my favorite chapters of the book are when the rabbits stop to tell a story about the great El-Ahrairah and his clever adventures.

Also like the Lord of the Rings, this is a novel that stops just short of allegory, and thankfully so. The limitations of allegory is that the tighter they are, the more they are limited to the time and place they are written for. Try to read Jonathan Swift's novels these days. Aside from Gulliver's Travels (which is much more universal in its parallels,) without extensive knowledge of English/Irish history, you are lost. Tale of a Tub, though brilliant and highly praised (and hated) at its time, now is hardly readable. Instead, Adams, like Tolkien, writes of universal themes. Universal enough that the crossover from rabbit to human is effortless, and the crossover from his time period to ours or any other isn't very much harder. The warren the rabbits leave dies because it refuses to change. Is this the England Adams knew? Perhaps. It also applies to a lot of churches and businesses. The second warren they visit has traded freedom and vitality for comfort and decadence. Is this America, as Adams sees it? Perhaps. It could also be Rome. Or suburbia.

But these themes are not all that make this book readable. A lot of authors have written horribly clunky books with universal themes. Adams is a deft storyteller; his characters are well-drawn and different from each other, heroic and limited; one of the things I appreciated most in the reading was the peculiar limitations and abilities of rabbits. Unlike most, Adams has not written a novel about men and called them rabbits; they are markedly different. They don't understand bridges and boats and trains; they run fast but wear out easily, they are easily frightened, and can panic and be paralyzed. In addition, Adams has a great sense of suspense: he knows when to change perspective to keep the tension running, and when withhold information from the reader-- and parcel it out, bit by bit -- to keep us wondering, and reading. The novel is paced well, and the problems the rabbits face feel legitimate, even inevitable.

A great book. A classic, on its own peculiar shelf.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful myth
Review: No doubt, Richard Adams planned to write this book as a story to his little children, but what came out is one of the most astonishing and imaginative tales I've ever read. In my opinion, what Tolkien did with hobbits, dwarves, men and elves, Richard Adams has done with rabbits.

At first glance, the reader may think: but what's there about rabbits that's so interesting? Of course, "Watership down" is not just about rabbits at all. Adams only used them as an allegory. But it's been really interesting reading about semi-sentient beings that are not distinguished by their intelligence, but by their tenacious will to survive against stronger enemies and sometimes even against themselves. More than that, Adams was able to create (like Tolkien) a spiritual, holy background for rabbits, permeating his story with nice tales about a smarter-than-most rabbit that lived in ancient times.

Richard Adams tells his tale like an old-fashioned myth, like a folded piece of clothing that the reader has to unfold and never stop being amazed by its size and complexity.

Grade 9.5/10