Watership Down

by Richard Adams

Paper Book, 1972

Library's rating

Description

Classic Literature. Fantasy. Young Adult Fiction. HTML: Fiver could sense danger. Something terrible was going to happen to the warren; he felt sure of it. They had to leave immediately. So begins a long and perilous journey of survival for a small band of rabbits. As the rabbits skirt danger at every turn, we become acquainted with the band, its humorous characters and its compelling culture, complete with its own folk history and mythos. Fiver's vision finally leads them to Watership Down, an upland meadow. But here they face their most difficult challenges of all. A stirring epic of courage and survival against the odds, Watership Down has become a beloved classic for all ages. Both an exciting adventure story and an involving allegory about freedom, ethics, and human nature, it has delighted generations with its unique and charming world, winning many awards and being adapted to film, television, and theater..… (more)

Media reviews

Time

Watership Down offers little to build a literary cult upon. On the American-whimsy exchange, one Tolkien hobbit should still be worth a dozen talking rabbits.

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The New York Times

This bunny-rabbit novel not only steers mostly clear of the usual sticky, anthropomorphic pitfalls of your common garden-variety of bunny rabbit story: it is also quite marvelous for a while, and after it stops being marvelous, it settles down to be pretty good- a book you can live with from start

to finish.

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The Guardian

It simply isn't possible. At this date, you cannot write a story about rabbits, 413 pages long, and hold a reader riveted. But Richard Adams has done exactly that in Watership Down (Rex Collings, £3.50). This is a great book, establishing a more than plausible and totally fascinating psychology

and physiology for its rabbits, together with their own mythology and language. It sounds formidable, perhaps; yet what one's aware of, reading, is a story of the most exciting kind, remaining taut over all those pages. It's set in a precise part of Berkshire (map provided) – the hejira of a group of rabbits who accept a clairvoyant companion’s prophecy that their warren will be destroyed; their establishment of a new home and their search for mates – this leading to war with a warren ruled by the protectively totalitarian General Woundwort. A whole world is created, perfectly real in itself, yet constituting a deep incidental comment on human affairs.

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