Watership Down

Somehow I got away with not reading Watership Down for years, despite more than one friend telling me it’s their favorite book. I’m glad I finally got around to it, because it’s excellent and I loved it. The story here is simple - rabbits embark on a journey to find a new home - but the supporting pieces are so well-constructed that you can’t help but be drawn in.

The worldbuilding is superb, particularly rabbit culture and its oral traditions (e.g. the myths of El-ahrairah). The rabbits have history that is more than perfunctory world-filling, it actually informs how they act in the story.

The characters aren’t the deepest; they aren’t flawed in complex ways other than being scared or sad. However, they’re still incredibly loveable, rich, and earnest, and it’s fun to see how their unique qualities combine to get them out of scrapes.

The setting is also done real justice (the down is a real place), with rich descriptions of nature and all its creatures. I’m really a sucker for lingering, lush prose describing natural settings, and Watership Down has that in abundance.

All of this stuff combines with the story to make something that just feels different from other novels. It feels like you’re reading a tale, something closer to The Hobbit than to other modern fiction. It’s a testament to the power of a good story, told simply with strong, straightforward characters in an interesting world.