Just Finished Reading Watership Down by Richard Adams

For a long time I had heard of Watership Down, a 1972 children's story by Richard Adams about a group of rabbits in rural England looking for a homeland...but it wasn't until last week that I managed to check out a copy from my local public library. I also remember that they made it into an animated movie a few years later but never saw it, either.  Well, after just finishing the book, I was suitably impressed...

Wild rabbits are social creatures, forming societies called warrens.  The characters in Watership Down (a "down" is a hill...there is actually a place called Watership Down in Hampshire) speak a language called "lapine" and organize their society like humans.  Adams originally conceived of Watership Down as a story he told his two young daughters during a long trip.  After their prodding, he wrote it as a book and sought the input of an expert on rabbits as to how they behaved in the wild...the result was an interesting composite of rabbit and humanity.   Hazel and Fiver are two ordinary rabbits living in a warren when the latter, a small rabbit with the gift of intuition, one day suddenly implores the others to quickly leave the warren to avoid destruction.  The warren's leader rejects Fiver's plea, and he, along with Hazel and a few others, manage to escape from the other rabbits.  It is their quest for a new home and the adventures, new friends...as well as foes...that they experience along the way that comprise this compelling tale, along with their folklore exemplified by stories told about their mythical spiritual leader El-ahrairah...

There is a temptation, when reading Watership Down, to draw analogies from it with human society and history...I saw a couple: Britain and America with their traditions of freedom standing up to the militarist dictatorships in World War II, as well as a disparaging look at socialist societies.  But the author denied any attempt at analogy...he was simply telling a story.  And I believe him, although a good writer will often unconsciously reveal much of his or her beliefs through the characters and their behavior.  If you haven't yet read Watership Down, I urge you to do so.  On one level, it's a story for kids about rabbits.  But on another, the text is written in a language for more mature readers.  Makes me want to read some of Adams' other stories.  By the way, Richard Adams passed away very recently...in December 2016...at the age of 96...