My Goodreads Rating: 3 of 5 stars
I never expected a book on bunnies could be so utterly grim and terrifying. If some youngling in your extended family develops an interest in rabbits and you are thinking on giving them this book, expect a call from Child Services quite soon… and deep emotional scars for the kid.
Like Orson Scott Card with his “Piggies” in Speaker for the Dead, Richard Adams invents a believable and fascinating culture around a non-human species. Card had a bit more freedom in his creation than did Adams, as we’re not likely to bump into otherworldly “Piggies” anytime soon, but its not too difficult to go study the bunnies in the park across the street and compare Adams’ depiction. This restriction makes Adams’ work all the more impressive. This type of thought experiment in non-human intelligence and culture, when well-executed, sheds light on subtleties of our own species that we might miss. The bunnies’ sensitivity to seasons and weather, extreme difficulty in grasping certain forms of problem-solving, and their utter reluctance to part with tradition highlight our own species’ impressive architectural victory over the hardships of weather and climate, flexible and agile minds, and equally strong bias towards traditional ways, respectively.
Despite the merits of this deeply allegorical and intensely suspenseful romp, I can only hand it 3 stars. Had I read this at a younger age, it might have trumped Tolkien’s work for me as the fantasy story of my youth, but at this point, I’m a bit unsatisfied if a book doesn’t teach me something new or inspire new ideas or world views by its conclusion. This is indeed a great story, but the only works of fiction that seem capable of meeting my expectations anymore are science fiction at its best – the kind that leads scientific and technological progress by several decades, both as prediction and inspiration (that is, as a self-fulfilling prophecy that gives scientists and inventors ideas on where to go next).
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