Thursday, March 19, 2009

Watership Down by Richard Adams -- A Book Review

It’s about bunnies.

Adams used to tell his daughters stories, about bunnies, on road trips to keep them amused. They begged him to write them down and so he did…it took him 18 years to complete it. People seemed to want to read more into it then he had intended. To him he was writing about a bunch of bunnies going on an epic adventure! And what an epic it is!!!

The story takes place 30 miles from where I’m currently living. Fiver is a type of seer and he tells his brother, Hazel that all the rabbits in their warren must leave because something bad was going to happen. Hazel knowing his brother believed him and went to the Chief Rabbit only to be told they were crazy and that to move the whole warren would be nuts! So, Hazel and Fiver gather a small band of rabbits and leave. That’s where the adventure begins.

1 comment:

  1. I wouldn’t say this book was a page-turner as I took a break from it and read something else instead before I finished it. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to finish it I just felt like I needed an intermission. It had everything a story needs. Dangers, suspense, mystery, close relationships and so on. It has some political messages like beware of a police state government because they are creepy and wrong. Okay I don’t know if that was Adams’ exact message, but that’s what I think. I don’t really believe in complete freedom from any government, but I think democracy is the closet thing too it. Hazel and Fiver and Co run into some weird warrens on the way. The scariest was General Woundwort and his way of running his warren (like a police state) he wouldn't let anyone leave and if they happened by a stray rabbit they made him join the warren and he wouldn't let anyone leave. Scary stuff.

    I wanted to be a bunny at the end of the story. Even with all the dangers of being such a small creature. Oh the other thing I read was that feminists' got all in a huff because the male rabbits didn’t care much for the female ones except for mating. In the animal kingdom very few animals mate for anything but the survival of their species. To change the story to have great love stories between rabbits would be a false representation of rabbits and animals in general. I know the story is fiction and he’s already given the rabbits characteristics of humans so why not the emotion of love? I didn’t think twice about how the does (female rabbits) were treated. Mainly because they weren’t treated badly just thought of because all the rabbits who escaped where male and they were trying to start a new warren. How were they to do that with out does? They aren’t frogs – if there are too many male frogs and no females they will change their sex to compensate so the species will strive.

    Okay I went a little bit off subject. I would recommend it and I plan to watch the cartoon movie soon. I really liked the stories the bunnies told. Moral stories that always fit in with what they were about to do.

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