I’ve never much liked anthropomorphic animal novels but I really enjoyed readingWatership Down by Richard Adams yesterday.  It is a long book but I had a lazy day, the day after having seventeen people here for Thanksgiving dinner, and I spend it ensconced in a  chair, reading this riveting tale of rabbits, the book recommended to me by my ten-year old.  I really must thank him.  I rarely put the book down, from start to finish.  What a lovely and gripping story; I was taken in by the bravery and heart and cunning of the rabbits, by their moments of spirituality and the moments of “do or die”. And the female rabbits were ever bit as brave as the males: hurrah!

Although in the book there are rabbits of true brave-hearted standing (almost mythically charged with goodness and enlightenment), there are no truly evil rabbits here, and I liked that touch of optimism.  There is more a sort of misguided fierceness than evilness in the rabbit that chooses to hold his governed ones under terror and control, and I won’t tell you how things turn out for him but given the optimism I mentioned above, you may be able to guess.  Nevertheless, the final showdown will grab you and shake you, as if you were a rabbit in the jaws of a fox, and you will be gasping by the finish.

Watership Down, published in 1972 and of which TV and film versions have been made, is obviously popular and the popularity is warranted.  Read it on a cold day by a warm fire and consider yourself a lucky rabbit indeed to have such a warm warren as the winds buffet outside.

Last note of recommendation: the descriptions of the English countryside,  especially those of the down at dawn and at dusk, are evocative and charming and very real.

And finally, to quote a lovely rabbit proverb (the “thousand” are the enemies of the rabbits but I read it as joining in with the stars to mourn the death of a loved one: I’m the reader and I can read it how I like, no?):

“My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.“