... Watership Down is seemingly set in the English countryside, told in third person omniscient as Adams relates the thrilling adventures of a band of determined, likable and humanized rabbits in a classic good versus evil tale that reveals man’s innate goodness as well as terrible inhumanity. ... Read review
Despite the fact that it's often a hard sell at first (what teenager wouldn't cringe at ... more
the thought of 400-plus pages of talking rabbits?), Richard Adams' bunny-centric epic rarely fails to win the love and respect of anyone who reads it, regardless of age. Like most great novels, Watership Down is a rich story that can be read (and reread) on many different levels. The book is often praised as an allegory, with its analogues between human and rabbit culture (a fact sometimes used to goad skeptical teens, who resent the challenge that they won't "get" it, into reading it), but it's equally praiseworthy as just a corking good adventure. The story follows a warren of Berkshire rabbits fleeing the destruction of their home by a land developer. As they search for a safe haven, skirting danger at every turn, we become acquainted with the band and its compelling culture and mythos. Adams has crafted a touching, involving world in the dirt and scrub of the English countryside, complete with its own folk history and language (the book comes with a "lapine" glossary, a guide to rabbitese). As much about freedom, ethics and human nature as it is about a bunch of bunnies looking for a warm hidey-hole and some mates, Watership Down will continue to make the transition from classroom desk to bedside table for many generations to come. --Paul Hughes
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Despite the fact that it's often a hard sell at first (what teenager wouldn't cringe at ... more
the thought of 400-plus pages of talking rabbits?), Richard Adams' bunny-centric epic rarely fails to win the love and respect of anyone who reads it, regardless of age. Like most great novels, Watership Down is a rich story that can be read (and reread) on many different levels. The book is often praised as an allegory, with its analogues between human and rabbit culture (a fact sometimes used to goad skeptical teens, who resent the challenge that they won't "get" it, into reading it), but it's equally praiseworthy as just a corking good adventure. The story follows a warren of Berkshire rabbits fleeing the destruction of their home by a land developer. As they search for a safe haven, skirting danger at every turn, we become acquainted with the band and its compelling culture and mythos. Adams has crafted a touching, involving world in the dirt and scrub of the English countryside, complete with its own folk history and language (the book comes with a "lapine" glossary, a guide to rabbitese). As much about freedom, ethics and human nature as it is about a bunch of bunnies looking for a warm hidey-hole and some mates, Watership Down will continue to make the transition from classroom desk to bedside table for many generations to come. --Paul Hughes
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1-5 of 8 reviews of Watership Down - Richard Adams
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Like Animal Farm Mixed With LOTR
Advantages: likable characters; suspenseful story Disadvantages: moved slowly; annoying accents; not much depth
...hands with the Russian president. Watership Down is seemingly set in the English countryside, told in third person omniscient as Adams relates the thrilling adventures of a band of determined, likable and humanized rabbits in a classic good versus evil tale that reveals man’s innate goodness as well as terrible inhumanity. Picture Orwell’s Animal Farm crossed with The Lord of the Rings if you can. The question remains: is it for children, adults ... ...Watership Down invites you into a secret world of its own where some of the rabbits’ language has to be explained at the bottom of the page or in the Lapine Glossary in the back. How I wish A Clockwork Orange had done this! It makes the novel feel even more other-worldly and intriguing. The rabbits don’t sound particularly British, but other animals they befriend have very irritating accents or ways of speaking that will slow you down, as do the ... more
When Englishman Richard Adams created this 426-page novel in the early 70s, he may have been influenced by world events, such as the bitter reality of the Vietnam War and President Nixon shaking hands with the Russian president. Watership Down is seemingly set in the English countryside, told in third person omniscient as Adams relates the thrilling adventures of a band of determined, likable and humanized rabbits in a classic good versus evil tale that reveals man’s innate goodness as well as terrible inhumanity. Picture Orwell’s Animal Farm crossed with The Lord of the Rings if you can. The question remains: is it for children, adults or both?
Similar to other fantasies, Watership Down invites you into a secret world of its own where some of the rabbits’ language has to be explained at the bottom of the page or in the Lapine Glossary in the back. How I wish A Clockwork Orange had done this! It makes the novel feel even more other-worldly and intriguing. The rabbits don’t sound particularly British, but other animals they befriend have very irritating accents or ways of speaking that will slow you down, as do the humans in one chapter.
The story begins by introducing the good characters whom we’ll follow throughout the novel. They live in a warren on a hillside that one of the rabbits, a visionary, sees in a dream covered in blood soon. Note that these are not your ordinary rabbits! This nervous rabbit has never lied to his brother and convinces him that they must leave to found a new warren. With only their friends and a couple of officers from their warren, they break out into the unknown with only their wits to guide them…or maybe not. The sometimes hysterical rabbit with visions seems to know where to go if the others would just listen!
About now some of you may be thinking that Watership Down doesn’t sound very amusing, to kids or adults, as in keeping your attention, and I’m not going to completely disagree with you. The visionary got on my nerves like he does on his friends’. He could really freak out kids as well, but fortunately they find out through a surviving rabbit that their old warren has been demolished, another vision comes true and they realize the rabbit can guide them to safety. Another thing they realize is that they have no females (does) in their group and will need to find some if their new warren is to survive. More risky adventures take place when no wild does can be found, except far away in a militaristic warren where General Woundwort rules viciously and efficiently.
You might take notice of the names of these rabbits. There are no Peter or Bugs. Instead you’ll find Hazel, Bigwig, Fiver (the weird one), Dandelion, Pipkin, Captain Holly, Hyzenthlay and Thethuthinnang (from Woundwort’s warren) and more. They show personality and are fairly interesting. They’re not very complicated characters and pretty much have one dimension to keep things simple, but even if I didn’t become emotionally involved with them, they were entertaining as little children who are becoming independent would be.
From page 114:
The wind ruffled their fur and tugged at the grass, which smelled of thyme and self-heal. The solitude seemed like a release and a blessing. The height, the sky and the distance (they could see from top of the hill) went to their heads and they skipped in the sunset. “O Frith (Sun) on the hills!” cried Dandelion. “He (Sun God) must have made it for us!”
“He may have made it, but Fiver thought of it for us,” answered Hazel. “Wait till we get him up here! Fiver-rah!”
You really won’t be inundated with lots of exclamation marks as if it’s mostly dialogue for there’s a good bit of scene description, action and thoughts of the rabbits and Adams, but the passage makes it understood how spiritual their journey or mission has been. Some people will comment that there’s little difference between spirituality and fantasy and that may be so, but it should be called to your attention. Not every fantasy has noticeable spiritual elements. These good rabbits try to overcome an evil rabbit full of hate through a call to his compassion, then by wits and tricks and lots of faith. You won’t be surprised by the ending, but will have to read it for yourself if you’re interested.
Now let’s address that question again about whether Richard Adams wrote Watership Down for a particular age group by considering a few things. The literary quotes from various writers like W.H. Auden, W.B. Yeats, Thomas Hardy, Kenneth Grahame, Dylan Thomas and many I hadn’t heard of began each chapter. Here’s the Dylan Thomas one (which I like):
And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home, In the sun that is young once only...from Fern Hill
I’m not sure that kids are going to appreciate how these quotes fit in with the story. They’re more likely to enjoy the storytelling by Dandelion of the rabbit folk hero and of the bible (the flood), which I only skimmed or skipped. Adults may enjoy the quotes and stories as well obviously from the novel’s popularity. The quotes didn’t always make sense to me, but would to someone better read. With 50 chapters and four sections, that’s a lot of quotes from lots of people!
Another thing to consider is that this tale may have talking rabbits, but they are pretty serious for the most part and there’s not much to laugh at here, unless you count the funny-talking animals or the unnatural things the rabbits do or their ignorance of highways and rivers and such. You will learn from Adams how real rabbits act and feel, which these good rabbits often demonstrate too, so any rabbit lover will enjoy that aspect, but remember that it could really frighten some young children if not lose their patience in the description and commentary by Adams.
I did not read the book as a child and maybe I would have liked it more then, but it seems to me that Watership Down would appeal best to older kids and some adults, especially if they like spiritual fantasies with lots of maverick-type adventure and a good dose of tension, but children's literature is misleading. It became more intriguing the further I read, it’s true, but I skimmed some chapters, was annoyed many times and really had to suspend my disbelief to even get through it. I’m going to go with three stars.
Advantages: Involves the reader incredibly deeply in the fortunes of usually ignored or depised creatures Disadvantages: Some of the writing is a little old-fashioned
...far, so ordinary - but Watership Down is far from being an ordinary book. Adams' great achievement is that he manages to create rabbit characters which are both athropomorphised (in that they can speak - normally in English, though fragments of their "Lapine" language are dotted about the pages) and realistic. By "realistic", I mean that they, for the most part, follow the behavioural patterns of real rabbits in such things as feeding and fighting. ... ...excitement, humour, terror, joy, sadness... in fact, the whole range of human emotion has been successfully instilled into a group of rabbits, with the result that the book is at times intensely moving. And that, I feel, is Watership Down's great triumph.
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Penguin, 1974. ISBN: 0-1403-0601-3. £5.99.
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davidbuttery 20.02.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Watership Down - Richard Adams
Advantages: A classic. Disadvantages: May have inspired too many other books.
...are many memorable characters in Watership Down, but perhaps the most memorable is General Woundwart. Learning what he is if you've never come across him before will probably lead you to echo the incredulity of those who first heard details of the soon-to-be-incredibly-successful book in which he appears. This is because General Woundwort is not of the genus Homo, but of the genus Oryctolagus. In other words, he's not a man, he's a rabbit. Which ... ...books about, among many other things, talking owls and badgers. I haven't read any of the later entries in the genre Adams founded, and I haven't wanted to, because if any of them come even close to matching the invention and realism of Watership Down I would be very surprised. ...
rose_of_sharon 14.08.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Watership Down - Richard Adams
Advantages: Adventure, companionship, fun, danger - everything the doctor ordered! Disadvantages: None at all.
Watership Down is an extraordinary story that illustrates how companionship and adventure can change lives. The story is base around a group of rabbits that have left their warren to find a new one that is safer. That is their mission, but natural predators and traps beset their journey.
Richard Adams' "Watership Down" is a brilliant book of epic proportions. One of the rabbits, Fiver, who appears to be clairvoyant, has a vision of a field of blood ... ...in the form of a land development team at the hands of men, whom the rabbits think, "Will never be happy until they've ruined the Earth."
The book presents a tale that is set in our world, but told from the point of view of the rabbits, complete with a creation myth and animal heritage original to themselves. Throughout the story, we hear the rabbits' own tales about their creator and El-ahrairah, a rabbit of myth and legend. El-ahrairah is a rabbit ...
jennyflower85 17.03.2006 (29.03.2006)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Watership Down - Richard Adams
Advantages: Shows what life is like for real wild animals in the world around us. Disadvantages: Some parts seemed a bit too gory for my personal taste.
One of the few books & films to ever move me to tears every time I read it or see it again.
Not your soppy look at rabbit life through a child's eyes but the often sadly brutal reality of life for wild rabbits out there in the countryside.
A significant point for me is the effect that we humans have, by the things we do with out thought of there effect, on the wildlife of a country.
For me another sad point was the way farmers were innocently ...
FriendlyLynn 03.10.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of Watership Down - Richard Adams
Advantages: Easy read Disadvantages: Engages younger reader more than older readers
Quite a good book and very suitable for the audience. Richard Down is excellent in providing a good read for readers of all ages and genders. This book keeps the reader entertained and is has a very good story line to it. The characters are friendly and easy to relate to the the book as a whole is very easy to read. All these factors help this book be passed down to generations. I recommend this book to any one that likes easy going type of books ...
niksniksniks 09.05.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of Watership Down - Richard Adams
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Advantages: That old magic's still there... Disadvantages: ...but not often enough
The appearance of a sequel (of sorts) to WatershipDown, almost a quarter of a century after the original book's appearance, should have been a cause for wild celebration amongst the many fans of Hazel, Fiver, Hyzenthlay and the rest of RichardAdams' lapine creations. As indeed it was - until we came to read it. Rather unfairly perhaps, given that it is in no way a disastrous effort, many readers will come away from Tales from WatershipDown feeling disappointed and let down.
Tales from WatershipDown (TFWD) is a much thinner volume than WatershipDown itself, running to under 250 pages as opposed to the 470-plus of the original. No matter, one thinks, as surely that's still enough space for an interesting novel. Would that this were so; in fact, TFWD is split into three parts, only one of which can justly be regarded as sequelious ...
Advantages: Its a watership Down novel Disadvantages: Its 24 years after the origional
RichardAdams "watershipDown" novel was a very popular book and his follow up to this is called "tales from watershipdown" and tells us more stories about El-ahrairahas told by Dandelion the rabbits master storyteller. These tales are riveting and once you start reading you won't be able to put the book down. If you are old enough to remember the release of watershipdown in its origional novel form then you will know what i am talking about but if you don't then get someone older to tell you about it. What basically happens ijn this book is that Dandelion tells the younger rabbits all about the adventures of the mythical rabbit El-ahrairah and his right-hand-rabbit Rabscuttle. This book just makes his ability to make stories seem so real yet unreal at the same time even more amazing to the reader. The book also tells tales ...
Advantages: Satisfaction of writing a novel Disadvantages: Hard to get published
already. (This is another reason I like to use a pen and notebook. It's easier to carry about and I don't have to remember things until I get home.)
You can learn things like characterisation from a book but no book can make you a writer. I'm a writer.I've written two novels now and neither of them has been published. I tried sending the first one out a few times but got fed up with it. Does it really matter? I'm still a writer, even if I do get rejected. (RichardAdams got eighteen rejections for 'WatershipDown' before it was accepted and I've only had four.)
If you want to be a writer you can. If your masterpiece gets rejected, so what? You wrote a book so you're a writer aren't you? ...
janharper 28.02.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Writing novels
