Watership Down: Richard Adams (A book with a two-word title)

A friend recommended this book to me, and I'll admit, when she first described it, the only interest came from the absurdity of it. As she told me, it's a book about a few rabbits surviving in the world. Strange, right?

It's actually a very neat idea: Richard Adams began telling his daughters a bedtime story about Fiver and Hazel, and after several years, when the story was finished, his daughters encouraged him to write the story into a book. Thus, Watership Down was born. 

The first thing I found fascinating about this novel is that it's really a children's story. But you wouldn't guess it from reading. The themes and concepts are mature, not so that they're inappropriate for children but so that adults can appreciate and connect to as well. It's about rabbits, yes, but it's also about us, which makes it such a compelling tale. Every few chapters, he includes a story that the rabbits tell, their own sort of mythology. I found these to be a great inclusion, especially when considering this story was made for children. And these tales go to show just how vast this world Adams created is. 

Adams created a rabbit language, which was so enjoyable. It was fun to figure out where the words he was using came from, and try and decipher the meaning of the words (without using his provided dictionary). Because the rabbits don't speak English, there are times they would come across something that they have no word for. This happened when they found a boat. They didn't have a word for boat, and sometimes, Adams would give us enough context and clues to figure out that the rabbits were talking of a boat, and other times, he would have other characters tell us what the item was. Rabbits don't have numbers either, so often times, Adams would simply tell the reader what the number was, and that was a fun sort of aside.

It's fascinating, to me, how real these rabbits are. They're just rabbits, but Adams made them human. He made them as real as I am. He does make sure, throughout the story, to remind us that they are just rabbits, and not human (by language or eating habits, etc.) but that doesn't take away from the anthropomorphism. I've never considered myself an animal rights activist, but I encourage anyone who hunts rabbits to read this book and then try and hunt a rabbit.

At the beginning of each chapter, Adams adds a quote, setting the mood and theme of the section, and I quite enjoyed finding the relationship between the quote and the chapter. Some were easy, but some were rather challenging. This was a great addition to the book.

I'm almost ashamed to admit that my heart bled for these rabbits. Sounds silly, right? The tragic triumphs they had and the horrific obstacles they faced were so real and alive in Adams' writing. I think that takes a certain sort of magic: making humans cry for the lives of rabbits.