Monica's Reviews > Watership Down

There is an ongoing discussion on goodreads about whether or not your friends' opinions of books influences your own when writing reviews.  Prior to this book, I would have said not really.  Possibly because many of my friends have similar tastes in books.  With Watership Down, my first instinct was to assail this book.  Mock it mercilessly!  But in my long list of friends, the question seemed to be "Is it a great book or is it the best book ever!?!"  Now this will not be a favorite for me, but it did give me pause about how to evaluate the book.  How could my opinion be so far off from many people whose opinions I respect?  It should be noted that there were some friends who shared my less than awesome view of the book whose opinions I also respect (maybe even more now…;-)) but there was this nagging feeling that I missed something…
 
What I liked About it…
 
I listened to the Audible version narrated by Ralph Cosham.  I think he was perfect for this book. I also loved the ecological message.  There was a contempt for the destructive nature of mankind in which I found commonality.  Also, the author Richard Adams comes off like a kindly old man.  I think I would have liked to have known him.  And the imagination on him!  He made up a story on the fly on a very long road trip for his two daughters.  His main rule was that these rabbits did what rabbits do. No super powers.  Honestly, the world building here was excellent.  With it's a very simple premise and the constraints of keeping the rabbits as rabbits; Adams created an extremely rich and interesting world from essentially fields of grass.  Pretty amazing!
 
The Problem Was…
 
1. OK, so I'm not the target audience.  I'm not a kid and I have no kids.  I'm not even around any kids.  Children are these alien things that can see and hear things that I no longer can and like weird stuff like Snapchat and Pokeman Go!  And they seem to like the anthropomorphized rabbits and maybe a seagull.  Whatever, I don't get it.

2. I am a woman of a certain age and I live in Trumplandia.  I'm jaded and cynical and my rose colored glasses are blurry and dark and spotted and a little black cloud follows me everywhere I go.  Good deeds and intentions come near me to wither and die.

3. Me and books written in the 70s just don't get along.  I don't know what's up with that decade but whatever was happening to adults seemed to have affected their creativity.  There is an inefficacy in the writing.  I blame the decade.  Maybe the writers just weren't inspired or energized.  Maybe some of the female writers were (to use a rabbit analogy) too busy breaking free from the patriarchal warrens and trying to have a rich fulfilling life of eating grass and making kittens by their choice aka combating extreme sexism and the males too busy fighting senseless wars determining who the biggest, strongest rabbit is and running from the ravages of mankind and controlling female rabbits aka committing it (sexism) .  Speaking of which…

4. Extremely sexist book.  He wrote this for his little girls!  They loved it! NO! NO! NO!  It wasn't intentionally sexist.  It was accidentally sexist which is worse because at the time he thinks he's telling a rip roaring adventure OMG this was so freaking sexist in the most overt ways and just NO!
 

Summary

Something bad is going to happen to the warren!



Save yourselves! Bro's before Does

We found a home! Hey there's no women to do the diggin' Bro's don't dig, that's Does work!

Bro's dig but set about finding some Does because bros can't be doing Does work forever! Also too, what about the kitten making! Bros need Does before they goes nutz!

Bros find Does and lots of them in an authoritarian patriarchy (Efrafa)!! Even the animal world is ruled by patriarchy. Why it's inconceivable that it would be any other way? For goodness sakes Adams, would it have been so hard to make the fox or the dog or the cat female? Really?!? Oh yeah, they also found two Does in a hutch on a farm with a dog and cat...

The "Does" of Efrafa are so unhappy that they don't make kittens. Apparently they have a way of "shutting that whole thing down". Jeez, it's as if the GOP got its sex education from Watership Down.

The answer? Steal Rescue the "Does" from Efrafa so they can come dig holes and makes kittens in their warren instead.

Lots of strategy and intrigue and war ensue and the good sexists prevail over the bad sexists primarily with the help of some brothers from other mothers (species--probably also sexist).

Epilogue: Happy warren with lots of kittens! We've met 4 female rabbits (that were given names) one of which died during the journey and launched a thousand hundred one no tear(s)

"Anyway, what's a doe more or less?" ~ Blackavar

Whatever! And they lived happily ever after for at least 5 or 6 litters.

Conclusion This book is a classic!?! I can't even…

3 Stars as a gift to my gr friends that loved it.

In my defense, I didn't hate it...BUT IT IS SOOO FREAKING NOT A FEMALE EMPOWERMENT STORY!!

Danger: Little girls may come away from this tale thinking their role in life is to dig holes, eat grass and make kittens. You have been warned...