Richard Adams

Fiction 2023 | 383 pages

This graphic novel is nothing sort of delightful to hold in your hands and let your eyes gaze on the evolving story.  The art is wonderful, the expressions on rabbit faces are astounding, the mood is consistent and pulls you along.

Unfortunately, I cannot quite tell you the story from reading this graphic novel!  While I read about many different leadership styles and their effectiveness and ineffectiveness and numerous adventures, I can't say which rabbits are victorious and who was eliminated.  There are too many rabbit warrens for me to really get my arms around the nature of each.

Watership Down has been described as an allegory, with the labors of Hazel, Fiver, Dandelion and Bigwig, "mirror[ing] the timeless struggles between tyranny and freedom, reason and blind emotion, and the individual and the corporate state." (Wikipedia).  It is a story about the survival of animals in the wilderness (I love the boat the best!) and it is thought to be a metaphor for World War II.

I loved this one sentence, and when I looked it up, I learned that it is one of numerous famous quotes from Watership Down  “ ‘My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today,’  (page 86) is the phrase the rabbits say over a fallen comrade; notice the enemy becomes one’s heart, because of the pain of loss  Not death.  Death, in other words, is not the enemy.  It is merely terrible.”  (Commentary from unknown source.)

I cannot compare this graphic novel to the actual novel, because it is probably almost 50 years since I read the 1972 book!  I have not decided yet if I will reread the full novel by Richard Adam's before book club meets at the end of January.  However, I do certainly recommend you pick up this gem of a graphic novel in the meantime!

P.s.  I read this book with my iPad and Google by my side, but was 90% through when I learned there actually was a glossary of the rabbits' LaPine language, on pages 378 and 379. This will save you some Google time!

December 2023