Watership Down by Richard Adams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This novel follows the trials and tribulations of a group of rabbits who leave a warren upon a warning from a prescient little rabbit named Fiver. Their exodus is fraught with peril from nature, man, other animals, and even other rabbits. The challenges they face threaten their unity as well as their survival.
Adams builds an intriguing cast of characters. Hazel is thrust into a leadership role. Bigwig is the physically powerful security chief. Fiver is the intelligent runt gifted with ESP. General Woundwort is the cunning and terror-inspiring enemy they must defeat to live in peace.
The book contains life lessons interspersed:
– One learns that the quintessential lover may also be a fighter.
– It shows how building alliances outside one’s comfort zone (sometimes outside one’s species) may allow one to win out over those rigidly uncompromising
– One discovers that sometimes one can only win by risking everything.
I found it to be a unique concept and very readable.
You’ll have to learn a little rabbit vocabulary and mythology, but there’s a glossary.
