Post by Kay on Nov 23, 2010 10:20:22 GMT -5
Watership Down is a heroic fantasy/political novel about a small group of rabbits, written by English author Richard Adams. Although the animals in the story live in their natural environment, they are anthropomorphised, possessing their own culture, language (Lapine), proverbs, poetry, and mythology. Evoking epic themes, the novel recounts the rabbits' odyssey as they escape the destruction of their warren to seek a place in which to establish a new home, encountering perils and temptations along the way.
The novel takes its name from the rabbits' destination, Watership Down, a hill in the north of Hampshire, England, near the area where Adams grew up. The story is based on a collection of tales that Adams told to his young children to pass the time on trips to the countryside.
Published in 1972, Watership Down was Richard Adams' first novel, and is by far his most successful to date. Though it was initially rejected by thirteen publishers before eventually being accepted by Rex Collings Ltd, Watership Down has never been out of print, and was the recipient of several prestigious awards. Adapted into an acclaimed classic film and a television series, it is Penguin Books' best-selling novel of all time. In 1996, Adams published Tales from Watership Down, a follow-up collection of 19 short stories about El-ahrairah and the rabbits of the Watership Down warren.
Publication history
Watership Down began as a story Richard Adams told to his two daughters, Juliet and Rosamond, on a long car journey; in an interview, Adams said he "began telling the story of the rabbits ... improvised off the top of my head, as we were driving along." He based the struggles of the animals in the story on the struggles he and his friends encountered during the Battle of Oosterbeek, Arnhem, the Netherlands in 1944. His daughters insisted he write it down—"they were very, very persistent"—and though he initially delayed, he eventually began writing in the evenings, completing it eighteen months later. The book is dedicated to his daughters.
"To Juliet and Rosamund,
remembering
the road to Stratford-on-Avon"
—Dedication, Watership Down
However, Adams had difficulty finding a publisher; his novel was rejected 13 times in all, until it was finally accepted by Rex Collings, a small publishing house. The publisher had little capital and could not pay Adams an advance; but "he got a review copy onto every desk in London that mattered."
Adams's descriptions of wild rabbit behaviour were based upon The Private Life of the Rabbit (1964), by British naturalist Ronald Lockley.The two later became friends and went on an expedition to the Antarctic, resulting in a joint writing venture, Voyage Through the Antarctic, published in 1982.
Plot summary
The real Watership Down, near the Hampshire village of Kingsclere, in 1975.
The novel begins in a warren with, Fiver, a young rabbit, who is considered a runt by the warren and yet is also a seer, receiving a frightening vision of his warren's imminent destruction. He and his brother Hazel, the main character of the novel who at this point is low in the rabbit hierarchy, attempt to persuade their chief rabbit of the danger facing them, but he ignores them because of Fiver's inability to accurately describe this danger. They then set out on their own with a small band of rabbits to search for a new home, though with difficulty, as the warren's military caste, the Owsla try to prevent them leaving.
The traveling group of rabbits find themselves following the leadership of Hazel, a role reversal because of his previous position as an unimportant member of the warren. They travel through dangerous territory, with Bigwig and Silver, both former Owsla, and Buckthorn as the only significantly strong rabbits among them. The company cope with many dangers, but by far the most threatening is when they meet a rabbit called Cowslip, who then invites the group back to be members of his warren. Here, the company encounter an apparently prosperous rabbit colony with ample food and protection from predators by a human whose farm is near their warren. However, Fiver is profoundly suspicious especially when he observes that these rabbits do not tell the customary tales of El-ahrairah but instead recite fatalistic poetry. When Fiver attempts to leave, Bigwig learns firsthand the deadly secret of the warren; the whole area is a human designed rabbit farm with numerous snares placed to harvest them. After helping Bigwig escape from a snare, Fiver convinces his fellows to leave this honey trap of a colony immediately, who after being exposed to the warren's horrific secret, flee with them.
Fiver's visions promise a safe place in which to settle, and the group eventually finds Watership Down, an ideal location to set up their new warren. They are soon reunited with Holly and Bluebell, also from the original warren, who reveal that Fiver's vision was true and the entire warren was destroyed by humans.
Everything is peaceful for a while before Hazel encounters a problem. Hazel realises there are no does, making the continuation of their new home an impossibility . With the help of a seagull named Kehaar who they have befriended , they locate a nearby warren, Efrafa, which is overcrowded and has many does.
Hazel sends a small emissary to this warren, composed of Holly, Silver, Buckthorn, and Strawberry, to present their request for does. While waiting for the group to return, Hazel makes a reconnaissance trip with Pipkin to a nearby farm to talk with a group of hutch rabbits who live there, partly in their quest for does but also because of Hazel's curiosity. They discover there are indeed does at the farm and, against the advice of the clairvoyant Fiver, decide to gather a raiding party to attempt to bring them to Watership Down. They don't successfully bring back any does, but they bring back news that there are in fact does there.
Hazel and the trustworthy yet diminutive Pipkin bring back the tidings to Watership Down, setting the stage for an adventurous and daring raid. Hazel and Bigwig, along with a group of four others, venture out to the farm and bring the hutch rabbits to Watership Down. They return with two does, a good start, but not nearly enough for a warren of their size. On their way back, Hazel suffers a gunshot wound to his hind leg. This is a wound that will never truly heal, and will play a large part in the rest of the story.
At this point in the novel, the emissary returns from Efrafa and Hazel and his rabbits learn that Efrafa is a tyrannical police state led by the dictator General Woundwort; Hazel's rabbits barely return alive. However, the group does manage to identify an Efrafan doe named Hyzenthlay who wants to leave the warren and can recruit other does to join.
Hazel and Bigwig devise a plan to rescue the group of rabbits from Efrafa to join them on Watership Down. The Efrafan escapees start their new life on Watership Down, but soon Woundwort's army arrives to attack their warren. Through the bravery and loyalty of Bigwig and the ingenuity of Hazel, the Watership Down rabbits defeat Woundwort's army. The fate of Woundwort himself is not exactly clear, but he is never again seen or heard of by any rabbit, bird, or mouse near the down.
The novel's last pages tell the reader of Watership down after the battle, as well as how Hazel, by now an old rabbit, is sleeping in his burrow one "chilly, blustery morning in March." Hazel is visited by the Black Rabbit of Inlé, who invites Hazel to join his Owsla. Leaving his friends and no-longer-needed body behind, Hazel departs Watership Down, slipping away, "running easily down through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom." This way of describing Hazel's death reinforces the idea of the rabbits' mythology, and also ends a sometimes sad and depressing novel with a feeling of hope and wonderment with which the novel is sporadically permeated.