Tales from Watership Down

I simply did not like this book. Some of the short stories were mildly interesting, some others were vacuous. Some of them seemed more like an adaptation of human moral stories to a rabbit society meant to educate children on the concepts of right and wrong, as opposed to being stories about ways of understanding the universe in which rabbits might possibly believe and tell if they had that ability.

  I have read the opinion of some people who say that this book tries to correct the lack of female characters doing interesting things in Watership Down. Fair enough, Hyzenthlay is made co-Chief Rabbit of Watership Down, but that was briefly mentioned once in a short story and is not an important aspect of the book. Yes, Flyairth is an adventurous doe that has the courage to leave Watership Down and form her own warren. Still, female rabbits are offered as prizes to male rabbits who perform heoric acts, and female rabbits are usually the first, and often only, casualty. Not cool.

Watership Down

This book was recommended to me by Michael Torpey, a friend whose opinion I value highly. Even though I had not previously heard about it, Watership Down apparently is almost an English classic. Almost everyone around me had at least seen the animated movie version.

  The story is entertaining and easy to read. Though I found that the rabbit mythology, introduced as short stories within the novel, felt at times like they were interrupting the fluidity of the plot. It seemed to me that the plot gained little by including these myths, and that their omission would not have significally changed the course of events. However, I must accept that having included these stories within the story did contribute to the beauty of the epilogue, which left me with a smile.

  I do agree with some of the criticism that I have read. The female rabbits are indeed portrayed mainly as sexual objects, and I do believe that all the current dialogue on sexual misconduct intensified the awkwardness of this portrayal. One must remember that this novel is based on stories that the author told his daughters to entertain them on long journeys, surely he did not mean any harm? Though there was also an ethnic reference which further contributed to making the story feel dated.

  Perhaps I am beeing too harsh. I should leave it on a positive note: Watership Down is a nice story about rabbits.