Watership Down is a 1972 children’s novel by Richard Adams. The story follows two rabbit brothers, Hazel and Fiver, who live a seemingly peaceful life in Sandleford Warren, the only home they’ve ever known. One day, Fiver receives visions of death and destruction, convincing him that a great, unknown evil is coming to destroy their home. Although their chief rabbit does not listen, Hazel and Fiver, along with a handful of other rabbits who heed their warning, decide to venture off into the world beyond the boundaries of their warren. Fraught with dangers—both from predators and the elements, as well as the customs of strange rabbits in other warrens—Hazel and company endeavour to find a safe place to found a new warren of their own.

Though it was relatively recently that I decided I ought to read this book, it’s had something of a presence in my life since childhood. This story actually has a reputation with a lot of children of the late 20th century thanks to the infamous animated adaptation from the 70s. I definitely heard about that film growing up, but it was also my childhood best friend—who had it read and told me about it—who cemented my impression that this book was really dark and messed up. So, this reading endeavour was in a way the dispelling of a phantom formed in my mind long ago, a unique experience where I must leave my imaginings of what a thing is behind and truly come to know it for myself. It made good on its reputation in many ways, but I was most surprised with how I struggled with it even now.

I don’t have much of any experience reading the personified animals subgenre, for lack of a better term, the likes of which include books like the Warriors and Silverwing series, among many others, but I’ve always gotten the impression that newer novels like those take on more fantastical elements, whereas Watership Down was always in my head something a lot more grounded. In many respects this turned out to be true, but I found it striking just how much legwork Adams puts into crafting rabbit culture, including a small lexicon of terms, spiritual beliefs, and cultural practices, all the while working to maintain their status as animals that live alongside us humans in a world just like our own. It gave the distinct impression of fantasy world building without the actual fantasy, with only the occasional, supposedly divine influence representing anything actually mystical.

The book contains more than a couple interludes where a storyteller in their group will regale them with a popular myth, lasting about a chapter, leaving me with memories and impressions all these months later of their mythical figures and why the lessons in these stories are important to these rabbits. Though Adams takes a lot of liberties in having them think like people like this, he also represents their animal nature and difficulty with more abstract thoughts in a very clever way. Early in the story, for instance, some of the smaller rabbits are aided across a river using a floating plank of wood as a makeshift raft. While a more clever rabbit among them comes up with the idea, even Hazel, essentially the protagonist, does not quite understand what trick they pulled. Using a buoyant inanimate object to traverse water is so alien to their nature that only the cleverest among them could fathom it.

Despite apparently being for children, this book is surprisingly dry at times and really takes its time, steeping the reader in the narrative and getting them intimately familiar with life as a rabbit and what’s at stake to ensure their survival. I’d like to call it a slow burn, but it often felt more like it was plodding along, despite the frequent high stakes. I expected this to be a breezier reading experience, which is what created the most conflict with the text for me. When I think back on the story in a broader sense, it’s all very compelling to me. Nevertheless, I have to contend with the fact that I sometimes found it to be an absolute chore to read, taking me far longer to get through than I feel it should have.

Those issues aside, I do see that Adams created something special here. Though the characters are fairly two-dimensional, this worked well in the context that they’re still supposed to resemble wildlife, managing to be evocative as characters all the same. The core of the story itself is relatable in a very primal way too, involving settlement and ensuring the prosperity of future generations. His representations of other warrens and the different compromises they make to ensure survival were especially deep too, serving as strong allegories for facets of human civilization. The warren that cultivates a deeper understanding of art and abstract thinking through comfort afforded to them at a grim cost was a particularly thought-provoking episode.

The ultimate struggle to find willing does (female rabbits) to come back to Watership Down and secure the future of their warren was a wonderfully never-wracking plot to undermine the leaders of an authoritarian warren. It sounds odd to say when I’ve already complained about the book being a bit of a slow chore for me, but the climactic moments of this novel succeeded in stressing me right out. The villain is a real nasty piece of work, and I became really invested in the success of their campaign, especially with how we see rabbit ideology (feels weird to say) evolve into something more cooperative and harmonious through the influence of Hazel and his brother.

Final Thoughts

Watership Down is both really compelling—perhaps far more than you’d expect about the lives of rabbits—and a dry and slow-paced reading experience; perhaps its no surprise that Adams was also a history scholar, though his success as an author is deserved. I find myself unusually at odds with my feelings about this book. It’s legitimately a really compelling narrative, and it can be seriously dry and slow to read. I had trouble motivating myself to read it a lot of the time, and when I was reading it I was so invested that I was stressed about the lives of rabbits. Somehow, both are the case.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5