Watership Down by Richard Adams with illustrations by Aldo Galli (Photo One)
Dear Readers, I only have one and a half books to go to finish the Wainwright shortlist (though note that Dara McAnulty’s ‘Diary of a Young Naturalist‘ has already won). However, I have got a bit bogged down in ‘The Frayed Atlantic Edge’ by David Gange – not that it’s not good, but it is long, and rather dense. i will review it soon, I promise, as there’s much there to enjoy. However, in the meantime let me share with you another old favourite.
if Black Beauty was the first book to make me cry, Watership Down is the first book that I can remember staying up all night to read. I’d promised Mum that I’d snuggle down and go to sleep but at 3 in the morning there I was, agog to see if General Woundwort would survive an attack by a dog. ‘Just one more chapter!’ I would think to myself, as the sky lightened and I realised that the whole night had gone in the company of Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig and the black-headed gull Kehaar.
What sets Watership Down apart from its many imitators is, for me, the complete realisation of a world, with its own mythology, culture and ways of seeing. It has been seen as everything from a riff on the Odyssey to a tale about the founding of Israel. Latterly it was criticised for concentrating so much on the male rabbits. It is certainly a work of its time, and yet for me once you’re down amongst the bunnies, everything else seems irrelevant. Will they survive? Will things work out?
I also think that few other books capture the helplessness of animals at the mercy of changes that they cannot understand, such as the destruction of a warren or their being ‘harvested’ for meat and fur. One of the saddest things about humanity seems to be the way that we betray the trust and good faith of other sentient creatures.
It’s clear that Watership Down was something of a one off. The book was rejected by seven publishers before being picked up by a one-man publisher, Rex Collings, who wrote to a friend
“I’ve just taken on a novel about rabbits, one of them with extra-sensory perception. Do you think I’m mad?”
But it was an immediate success: Newsweek noted that
“Adams … has bravely and successfully resurrected the big picaresque adventure story, with moments of such tension that the helplessly involved reader finds himself checking whether things are going to work out all right on the next page before daring to finish the preceding one.”
I’m sure I wasn’t the only child pretending to be asleep and then reading the book under the covers. I probably wasn’t the only person who winced at the animated film, either: I see to my chagrin that the film came out in 1978 when I was (ahem) 18 years old, but I still found the violence a bit much. Still, I am the child who cried in Pinocchio when the whale got hurt, and don’t talk to me about Bambi as I am still traumatised. i can take death and misery in a book (just) but don’t show it to me.
Movie poster for Watership Down
Incidentally, the theme song for the film, ‘Bright Eyes‘, was sung by no less a star than Art Garfunkel, although Richard Adams hated it and it’s a bit too candy-coated for me too. Have a listen though, just in case.
Perhaps the most moving part of the book is the end, where the Black Rabbit comes to take Hazel to that great warren in the sky. I re-read it for this piece, and I still love it. Who knew that a book could recognise the heroism in a bunch of rabbits, and reduce a sixty year-old woman to a blubbering wreck? Well, that’s the power of a good story. If you’ve never come across Watership Down and fancy a few hours in another world, I can heartily recommend it.
Photo One from https://oneworld-publications.com/watership-down.html
This proved to be such a favourite book that as a family we have gone through two copies of it! My first copy sported a beautiful cover, lighter yet similar to the first one you depict. It fell apart when a friend borrowed it and she returned a copy with a cover akin to the movie poster you show – I dislike it! The film disappointed me, but the novel never will: I have read it to my children and parts to my grandchildren; I have read excerpts to classes I taught … a tissue always near at hand. Whenever I see hares, rabbits or dassies feeding on grass I still think of them going out to silflay! This is a book for every adult and child – I am glad you are bringing it to light.
I’m glad you loved it too, Anne! Writing about it has made me want to read it all over again…
Another favourite. I wonder if children still read it today or have the been contaminated by the film. So heavy handed
Agreed, all the delicacy and nuance of the book was missed…
Oh dear – we are very much of ages. I read this on holiday and couldn’t put it down. Animal Farm had been my favourite until then, having the merit of being short, but this was “impossible to put down” despite its length. When the film came out (in 78 as you remind me) I queued but was turned away as the house was full. So on a whim I watched the film on Screen 2: “The Hills Have Eyes” which went on to be a B movie classic. I never watched the WD movie – but I did read Shardik. There is a rule that if you read the book first you won’t like the movie – One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest – I rest my case!
Exactly! Someone else’s idea of what a character looks like, or what incidents should or shouldn’t be in the film, are always going to be difficult to accept when you love a book…
I loved it, right up there with The Wind in the Willows and Alice in Wonderland for me. Better than Alice, actually. And every time that you have used a weed name used in the book, I have thought of the rabbits! And you include really good photos, so I am finally able to link things up. Many thanks. I think I will read it again right soon, as I need a story with a good ending. Fortunately was never tempted by the film.
I’ve still got a battered old paperback upstairs. I don’t remember reading the book – though I’m pretty sure I did – but I do still vividly remember a trip to the pictures to see the film (I would have been 7) – were we made of sturdier stuff in those days thinking that Black Beauty and Watership Down were suitable for children 🙂 I’m not sure I could read it again these days…
I’ve always been puzzled by what’s deemed suitable for children at the cinema – films with what feel to me like horrific levels of violence get a 12A (like that James Bond film where Daniel Craig gets tortured while he’s tied to a chair naked) but let one of the characters drop an F bomb and it’s a 15…
I think you may have tempted me to revisit Watership Down though – although as I remember it’s quite a long book with small writing 🙂
I find the small writing more and more problematic as I get older I must say…