Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run! (Watership Down - Richard Adams)

Member Name: angusreid

Product:	Watership Down - Richard Adams
Date:	29/11/03 (288 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Moving, Creative, Inspiring

Disadvantages: Sad, Ture to life

Is it a kind of a dream
Floating out on the tide
Following the river of death downstream
Oh is it a dream?
There's a fog along the horizon
A strange glow in the sky
And nobody seems to know where it goes
And what does it mean?
Oh is it a dream?
Bright eyes, burning like fire
Bright eyes, how can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly,
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes

Few things in life have meaning, to young and old, to the hardened and to the religious, yet sometimes, a feat of miraculous imaginative literature can not only tear the mind apart, cause the eyes to flow streams of tears, both joyful and of sadness.

Watership Down, by Richard Adams is arguably the best children?s story ever to be printed in word form.

Richard told this story to his grandchildren if I am not mistaken, and they badgered him (excuse the pun) to write this down and share it with millions of other children who would love to be enchanted by the tales of these worldly rabbits and their quest for the holy grail of safety.

History itself can only bare witness to the hysteria that befell this unique and priceless tale, and the life?s that it touched, only those who have read the book can share the emotional hell that these bobbled tailed travellers had to confront before finding their garden of Eden, their promised land, Utopia!

INTRODUCTION

Richard Adams, a man of many wise years and of worldly talent, enjoyed to entertain with his tales of wildlife and the South Downs, particularly the regions of Hampshire, Andover and her small wolds, villages, and countryside.

This story is a tale of a threatened rabbit warren, and their journey of epic proportion to find a place to live far from the destructive hand of humanity, and far from the smell of petrol, cigarette butts (those who have read will remember) and the everyday hazards that being a b
unny tends to bring!

Now a plot spoiler I am not, far from it, so please, forgive my somewhat whimsical brush of fact, and my in depth approach to my own experience and feelings, which I believe to be of the utmost importance when telling a tale of a tale.

Richard began with a short story, then implemented his own fears and beliefs into a cynical, but fairy-tale like version of an oppressed race, be it bunny?s or a tribe cast out from their own land and forced to fight for their very survival, the choice of story can be yours, and this is well camouflaged to prevent the critical eye of ?normality? from chastising his very works.

STORY

Imagine you wake up one day, and find that there is a JCB outside you house with blueprints strewn over your garden wall, and builders with their arses hanging out their overalls sharing sexist jokes and boasting about their evening?s conquests.
You ask them what they are doing, and their response is simple.

?We are building a bypass through your house love!?

Gasp. Shock, horror!

You [phone hubby at work, and he says,
?Quick, grab the kids and head for mothers!?

Too late, mother?s has been demolished and you have to aid her, despite her age and her disabilities, and head for Aunt Ethel?s.

Ethel is standing at her garden wall, dejected and without any fight left, she has accepted the fact she is too old to live in the house her husband, Uncle Ted, fought in the war for. Her will is broken, her body limp and heavy, yet you, only you have the strength to make her see that there are better houses two blocks away, far from the constant drum of car engines and screeching tyres, only you can restore her faith in life, and lead her to the sanctuary of ?happy valley? scenario.

Are you with me yet?

If not, don?t despair, but be intrigued, as that is exactly what happens when a somewhat peaceful day is disturbed by humanity deciding a rabbi
t warren is no longer a home for 100?s of rabbits and their young.

The difference between what I have just told you and what Richard Adams shares with you is simple, its WATERSHIP DOWN!

VISION

Strange header for a book, vision!

Surely more fitting for a film, or even a play?

I will explain.

R.A. had vision; he saw what others thought an irritation and sculptured a generation of animal lovers into what we now perceive as animal rights protesters.

Not the hardened burn down the Minx farm extremists, nor the anti fox hunting protesters that rightfully spoil the somewhat Victorian subordinates of barbaric sport, but more the concerned adult who wishes the countryside to be just that, countryside.

Each chapter stretches the mind towards different values, new challenges. Belief beyond the normal scope of nature, guiding you safely into the harbour of self- satisfaction, when journeys become reality, reality becomes itself.

The vision that R.A. had was simple, but strong. Everyone, be it rabbit or seagull, had a place in this world, a place of love and safety.

FLOW

This was a hard one to characterise.

How did the book flow?

There are a few ways to measure this, as I will explain.

The first time I read this, I finished this in days.
Although some four hundred pages long, I was mesmerised by the whole scenario.
Rabbits weren?t rabbits, but people. People fighting for survival, fighting us, humans, for a place to live alongside us and enjoy what the earth had to offer.

Sometimes I closed the book with tears in my eyes, and sometimes I smiled. A smile of ecstasy, jubilation even, only the smile a thirteen year old could smile when reading about ?grown up? issues.

I read this book again, shortly after I finished it, and have read her now so many times that I fail to remember the exact amount.

So with flow being the head
er, I guess she flows like the Nile to her deltas, before spewing into the larger presence of the Mediterranean Sea.


ORIGINALITY

Now there?s a thing!

Maybe not a unique approach to exposing humanities shortcomings in respecting her fellow inhabitants, in fact, a somewhat similar approach as that used by George Orwell with his Animal Farm Novel, exposing the Communist Russia for all her faults turn of the century time.

The difference being he injected a bit of, lets say Tolkien style and a bit of Durrell humour into his work (Please note, for the die hard readers, these are just two people who spring to mind who dare to challenge the everyday beliefs of story writing and implementing a unique blend of humour within their work).

This produces a not only compelling read, but a crisp and often enchanting twist to what could so easily be categorised as a children?s tale.

Far from it!

Watership Down is as original now, as it was those years ago when I first smelt a cowslip in my own imagination.

CONCLUSION

Analytical, then I feel so sorry for you.
Imaginative, you are so lucky
Sceptical, READ IT!

Whoever, whatever whenever, this book not only surpasses all your wildest expectations, but it delivers a moral victory and awakens the mind into a questionable corner, before releasing a deep realisation that this is not our life alone, but a life to enjoy, a life to share.

Along with Lord of the Rings, The Otterbury Incident. And My Family and Other Animals, this book moulded my teens and produced a thoughtful if still disillusioned Angus, and then threw me out to discover the beauty of Nature and the countryside around us.

Try it, I can?t guarantee you will feel the same, but hell, it is an invigorating read.

Angus

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