Watership Down

Given the theme of these blogs, I think it appropriate that my first book review should be Richard Adams' Watership Down.

This is a children's novel about a journey undertaken by a group of rabbits that breaks away from their current warren (i.e. rabbit den) to travel to a better location, and about the adventures they encounter along the way. I say it's a children's novel because the novel was originally targetted towards children, but the novel has such a broad appeal that it's been accepted by readers of all ages, in many cases because the storyline echoes classic epic tales like the story of Odysseus.

The book is particularly wonderful because the main characters in the book, the rabbits, have been given some human qualities, like speech, but not to a degree in which their sense as rabbits has been lost. Richard Adams' has painstaking crafted a rabbit culture that is similar to a primitive human society - a culture rich with myth and wonder, in which concepts that cannot be understood by the rabbits in the novel are described in the same manner that mythologies of old were used to describe events that could not be explained by the science of the times.

There is even a special language in the novel, Lapine, that is used to describe concepts that are unique to rabbit culture. For instance, to demonstrate the limited cognitive capacity of rabbits, the term "hrair" is used to describe any number greater than four, which is considered an uncountable amount - it could be five or a thousand. The word is used to describe the multitude of their enemies, the Thousand.

The narrative of the journey that the rabbits go through is intercut with myths from the rabbit history, and here is where the book really shines. Most of these myths surround the rabbit hero of legend, El-Ahrairah. In Lupine, the name is composed of elil-hrair-rah, which means enemy-thousand-leader, or the Prince of a Thousand Enemies. The character is an epic hero in rabbit culture in the same vein as Gilgamesh, Jason, Robin Hood, Jack (of American folklore) - he is the most clever and wise of all of the rabbits, the ideal to strive for. Through the course of the novel, it is revealed that the tales of El-Ahrairah are actually the tales of several rabbits that have all been collected under the name of the folk hero, and the trials of the main characters in the series are added among the legends. There is something in the way these stories are told that make the rabbits immediately accesible as characters - perhaps some remnant of our primitive ancestry that resonates with myths, recalling times when we were fearful and awed by the world around us.

One legend explains the history of rabbit society. Initially, Frith (the Sun personified as a god in rabbit culture) made all of the animals freinds; there was no predator or prey. But El-Ahrairah and his people were so prolific, they quickly grew to the point where they overran the world, despite the warnings of Frith that he would devise a way to keep the rabbits in check if they did not stop. When the rabbits continued to multiply unheeded, Frith decided to award each of the animals a gift, each at a different time. While some animals were given benign gifts, like songs for the bird or horns and strength for the cow, animals like the fox and the cat were given sharp teeth and claws and the desire to kill the children of El-Ahrairah. El-Ahrairah was warned that predators were being made to hunt him and his children, so he began to dig into the ground when he heard Frith coming to give him his gift, thinking that he was a predator coming to eat him. When Frith asks where El-Ahrairah is, El-Ahrairah tells him he has gone away, and when Frith asks El-Ahrairah to come out of the hole so that Frith may bless him instead, El-Ahrairah replies that he is digging to escape the predators, but if Frith wants, he can bless his bottom. Frith begins to feel pity for El-Ahrairah, and so he blesses his bottom so that he has strong and powerful legs to flee from predators, and thunp the ground to warn the others. Frith explains that thought El-Ahrairah and his people will always be hunted, they will be the fastest and the cleverest, and his people will never die.

While a children's story, Watership Down is certainly not sunny and cheerful. The rabbits brave death quite frequently, and they do not always come out the victor. One of the main characters has terrifying and prophetic visions of death coming to visit the rabbits in the beginning of the novel, prompting the exodus that makes up the bulk of the story. There is a very touching and poignant scene, where upon the death of a freind, one of the main characters quotes a rabbit proverb that sums up their fearful lives quite well:

"My heart has joined the thousand, for my friend stopped running today."

I have deliberately spoken very little about the main plot of the novel, for fear of giving it away to anyone who has interest. It is notable for having several main characters, each of whom performs a crucial skill to keeping the rabbits alive. It is one of my favorite novels, and I hope you'll read it.