“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.”
Richard Adams’ classic fantasy novel Watership Down, like
many other classic works of literature, endured myriad of obstacles to get published (in 1972
by Rex Collings). In fact, the genesis of Watership Down is as much fascinating
as the detailed fantasy world of anthropomorphized rabbits. Richard Adams
originally began telling the tales of sapient animals to his two daughters on a
trip. By this time in the 1960s, Oxford-educated Adams, also a war veteran of
World War II, worked in the British Civil Service. Encouraged by his family and
inspired by naturalist Ronald Lockley’s ‘The Private Life of Rabbit’, he started
writing the story, which took him two years to complete. Then Adams faced at
least seven rejections from publishing agencies. But over the years after its
publication, the book sold more than 50 million copies (at age 54, Adams became
a full-time author; he wrote novels and wrestled with ideas for stories up
until his death in 2016, at age 96). Now Watership Down has cemented a position
in the fantasy literature hall of fame right alongside J.R.R Tolkien,
C.S.Lewis, etc.
A lot of first-time
readers of the novel would stumble across a kind of disparity between their
expectations and the writers’ tone. The image of rabbit may withhold a childish
appeal, but the preoccupations of Adams’ anthropomorphized rabbits are very
adult in nature. The story deals with themes of tyranny, survival, leadership,
reproduction, and freedom that may appeal more to older children and adults (it
gained a reputation of being ‘not-so-appropriate children’s book’). It is
because much of the naturalistic/realistic details about the rabbits’
existential quest are drawn from Adams’ experience in Second World War. His
acquaintance with rebels, soldiers, and officers makes up for the human
adult-like mental state of the rabbits.
Watership Down opens in Sandleford Warren, a quiet home to
many rabbits. Among these, brothers Hazel and Fiver (less than a year old) go through
their routine of nibbling grass at sunset. Hazel hopes to gain more weight and
join the ranks of Owsla – the strong inner circle. Fiver is an oddball runt of
his litter, oft disregarded by others in the warren. When Fiver comes across a
sign board in the field, he gets agitated and has a premonition. Hazel takes
Fiver to the Chief Rabbit and he warns about bad things waiting to happen. The
Chief Rabbit brushes away Fiver’s warnings and finds it impossible to entirely
move their warren. Hence, Hazel and Fiver decides to leave the warren. And
before long, they are joined by Bigwig, the strongest of their warren and a
member of Owsla. After mild altercations, eleven rabbits including Hazel and
Fiver make a difficult journey across fields and roads that are infested with
humans’ hrududil (automobiles) and other kinds of enemies.
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| Author Richard Adams |
During tough times, a story-telling rabbit named Dandelion
narrates the adventures of El-ahrairah, the persistent hero of rabbits’
folklore. The stories are full of cunning and bravery which inspires our heroic
rabbits to keep going in order to find a safe place in the hill. The band of rabbits
first stumble into a seemingly peaceful warren, invited to live there by a giant, well-bred rabbit named Cowslip. All the rabbits in the warren looks
healthy, although they are melancholic and strangely the population is low. Once again
Fiver warns of sinister things lurking in the warren. But only when the rabbits
of Cowslip's Warren fail to appreciate the marvel of El-ahrairah’s stories do the
freedom-seeking rabbits led by Hazel grasp the diffidence and sinistral things
pervading the warren. The unmasking of the Cowslip’s secret pushes Hazel
and others to congregate on Watership. The top of the hill is asserted as
perfect place for building a new warren, since the view would warn them of any
enemies in the area. Hazel continues to find new ways to strengthen their
warren. By this time, two injured rabbits from their old warren (Sandleford),
also its only survivors, carry bad news that confirms Fiver’s premonition.
However, the immediate problem preoccupying Hazel is to find does (female
rabbits), without whom the warren will not thrive. The quest for does sets Hazel
and his rabbits on a hazardous adventure that brings them face-to-face with a
tyrannical General (Woundwort) of an excessively controlled warren known as
‘Efrafa’.
Richard Adams always
rejected the idea of interpreting too much from his story. He has remarked, “It
was meant to be just a story…..simply the story of rabbits made up and told in
the car.” Nevertheless, Adams’ claims didn’t stem the flow of allegorical
readings over the decades, some of which I find very interesting. Some
critics/bibliophiles latch on to the book’s religious allegory, some focus on
its folkloric elements, and few others find strong references to primitive
humans and their civilizations. What I particularly gleaned from Watership Down
is the perpetual conflict between quest for freedom versus the allure of safety and
security. This is a theme that’s central to the human hierarchical societies of
20th & 21st century as we relentlessly mull over the
boundaries of freedom and need for safety. The other significant element addressed
in the novel is encroachment of lands for industrialization so as to solely
satisfy the human needs. Mr. Adams constantly evokes the beautiful image of the
pastoral, and the intrusion of this pleasant space by human footsteps, cars and
other machineries deeply conveys the foolhardiness and stolidness of our race.
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| A still from Martin Rosen's 1978 adaptation of the novel |
I immensely liked the way the author gradually builds up
character traits for each rabbits, making it easy to differentiate one from the
other. Adams flawlessly zeroes-in on the group dynamics and how these different-minded rabbits come together in nerve-wracking situations. The
surefooted leader Hazel, the belligerent Bigwig, the intuitive Fiver, all of
whose knowledge unchained from hierarchical politics enormously benefits the
rabbits of Watership Down in grave situations. In fact, numerous lessons on
leadership, group dynamics, and authority roles were weaved out of the way
these rabbits smartly maneuver themselves from imminent catastrophe.
In many ways, there are similarities between Tolkien’s quest
of the hobbits and the rabbits’ goal. Adams, like Tolkien, had conceived distinct mythology and language (Lapine) for their fantasy world, although not as obsessively as the
creator of Middle-Earth. Primarily, both are about ragtag band of young heroes braving
a greater enemy. While Tolkien doesn’t offer any explanations for the absence
of detailed female characters (with inner lives), Adams blames it on the
impassivity of the male rabbits, who desires bunch of does, not for romance but
to build a stable population in the warren (of course, if Watership Down is
published now, it would have drawn heavy criticisms for not portraying liberated,
self-dependent does). Any way, it’s better to read the book for what it is (a beautifully
written epic adventure) than for what it is not.
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