Watership Down by Richard Adams

This book is--- beautiful, intense, and dramatic. I don't know where to begin but the unique characters, Fiver the visionary, Bigwig the fighter, Hazel the leader, Blackberry the clever, Dandelion the athletic story-teller, Speedwell, who, along with Hawk-bit is quite stupid, Hawk-bit also a strange rabbit, and Silver the quiet one. the villains and sidekicks too have a great character in this book too, General Wound-wort and his Efreferan Owslafa, but the General the blood thirsty-insane GIGANTIC rabbit, and Cowslip and his warren. Another great thing about this great book is the poetic descriptions, mainly seen in the begining and very end. of course there are also the great descriptive fights. The stories told are of Frith, Rabscuttle, and El-Hrairah the legendary heroes of Lepine Religion (rabbit religion). I recomend this book to people who read and liked "Redwall" and "Earagon".

I have only read one Richards Adams book, Watership Down. At first I was sceptical that it would appeal to me, I was an adult and it was about rabbits! But once started, I could not put it down and read it all in two late night sittings. It was so gripping I really did have trouble putting it down. This is not a cliché it was true I really needed to be fresh the following morning as I had to be up at six the next day, but despite that I did not get to bed until two AM.
It is a book you can pick up and rediscover again and again, but it was a real discovery to me recently when I re-read it after an absence of some years, and looking at the map it contains, I discovered I had been travelling the same journey the rabbits took, on my way to work every day for two years without realising it.
Sandleford, where the rabbits started from, is on the outskirts of Newbury and Watership down is a green area overlooking the picturesque town of Kingsclere. Driving from Newbury to Basingstoke, you pass quite close to Watership down itself and the iron tree that the rabbits encountered is right there too, a TV transmitter mast. I often wonder how many other people driving that route know that they are following the painful journey the rabbits took, struggling for days to cover, a distance that takes me about ten minuets to drive in what the rabbits call a ‘hrududu’. One of the things I like about this book is the rabbits vocabulary. They have their own words for many everyday things but some words are purely rabbit and, you gradually learn what these are. If made up words in a book do nothing for you, don’t let it stop you reading this book, they do not get in the way of the main story and this book is well worth reading, even if it is about rabbits.

This is a fascinating story of a colony of rabbits (called a warren) in England, seen from their point of view. It is not a light, sweet story, but full of politics, laws, betrayals, survival, danger and the true way of the world.

As the story begins, we meet the main character Hazel and his associates. One of his friends, actually a litter-mate, is a seer. This rabbit foretells the destruction of their warren by men. These two convince a small group of other rabbits to leave the warren with them and make a new life in a safe place.

Along their dangerous journey they encounter a twisted warren with a nasty secret, a militaristic warren emulatinging communism and many other intriguing situations.

In his book, Adams also includes a map of the rabbits' journey, and a glossary of terms in the lapine tongue. This book has a lot of heavy vocabulary, but even a young reader can understand the story. I wouldn't recommend anyone under age 12 to read it, however, adults of all ages will enjoy it. It really sheds a different light on the "fuzzy cute little bunny" idea.

The book was first published in 1972. I first read it when I was about 13. It also has an animated movie by the same name which follows the book pretty closely.