My worlds collided last week in a great little discussion group on housing rights. We watched a snip from the inspiring documentary "A Village Called Versailles" and read about preserving Asian enclaves and immigrant neighborhoods in the face of gentrification and anti-immigrant ordinances. We talked about opportunities for people to band together to fight developers and local government... but the whole time I was thinking about rabbits. Why? Because at the time I was halfway through Watership Down.
This is more a testament to the depth of the latter than my superficial appreciation for the former (at least I hope so). I just hope no one was turned off this book after seeing the scary cartoon.
For those who have not had the pure joy of reading it, Watership Down is the story of a group of rabbits who flee a warren destroyed by developers. They pass through some strange places, encountering other lapine communities with radically different social structures, making for some clever allegory.
Above all, however, Watership is a classic adventure story, with elements reminiscent of folk mythology and Homer's epics: heroism, prophecy, fraternity, and the journey home. It was only after this discussion group that I began to appreciate a third dimension of the story-- how to unite a community, who decides and speaks for a group, and sustaining a social organization are classic themes in community organizing also explored in the book.
In short, it's worth discovering, rereading, and passing on.
I love Watership Down. I first read it in middle school, where much of it was over my head, and then reread it recently and thought what an amazing work it is. Every now and then when we see rabbits on our local trails, I tell Erik the origin legends from the book. ;)
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