Yeah that's right! I read stuff too. I recently really started reading a great deal, like a book every 1 to 2 weeks. This started right around the time that I finally accepted my age and got some reading glasses. Prior to that I would get headaches from reading and well, there was a very simple reason for that and it was that I can't see stuff.
At the moment I am subjected to the library of my friend who is a bit of a collector. This is a rarity in Vietnam because most of us are transient and the last thing we want to do is have a bunch of heavy books to transport. He isn't going anywhere because he is married to a Vietnamese person. English books can prove difficult to find in this country as well so meeting him has been a bit of a blessing.
Moving on, let's take a look at the rather famous book Watership Down, by Richard Adams.
Proof that I actually have it
Now this is a children's book for the most part and that is evident early from the start as it revolves around a group of rabbits that live in a warren. That was a word I didn't know before reading this book so thanks Richard Adams, you taught me something.
The characters are nicely presented and we end up focusing on a few central characters that are at first subjects of another warren, and because one of the rabbits in their crew is a bit of a fortune-teller, they set out to flee the impending doom. That's all I am going to say about that because I don't want to spoil the book for people that might be interested in reading it.
I'll start with what I think are the good points of the book:
- It is written in a very easy to understand way and this is why I consider it a children's book despite the fact that it is 600 pages long. There are going to be very few words in this that you would need to look up in a dictionary, as if that was something that people still did.
- The author put a lot of time into describing how rabbits might live and perhaps spent a lot of time understanding rabbits in the wild before authoring this. He even creates a "rabbit language" of sorts where they have different words for various things like "hrudru" for cars because they don't really have much of an understanding of what a car is.
- The chapters are short so you don't get hung up in any one talking point for too long. This is a personal preference of mine because I like to have plenty of stopping points in my books. Chapters that are too long annoy me and one that stands out in my mind happened with the character John Gault in Atlas Shrugged where a speech that he was giving goes on for over 50 pages. That's too long for me to focus on anything, even if it is interesting.
- You start to genuinely care about the various characters and have a good understanding of their individual personalities even though as the author states, most of the rabbits look almost exactly the same
Now because I operate mostly as a pessimist I am also going to point out things that I did not like about the book
- Even though the story is told well, not a great deal actually happens. In the 600 pages in the book there are only about a half a dozen actual meaningful events. The book at times has a "get on with it already" feel to it and while this is just a personal preference, I am kind of impatient when it comes to storytelling.
- There are sometimes entire paragraphs that I would just scan rather than read because it becomes evident very early on in the story that Richard Adams has a penchant for rather elaborate descriptions of surroundings. There are times when two pages would be dedicated to describing the grass next to an entrance to the warren and for me at least, I simply don't care about this level of detail.
- This criticism will get shot down by more serious readers but it is my opinion so it can't possibly be wrong: I think the book is at least twice as long as it needed to be. There is a ton of things that happen in the story that could have been condensed. Again, this is a personal preference but the flowery details of EVERYTHING was something that resulted in me scanning parts of the chapter rather than taking it all in word for word. For some people maybe they appreciate this sort of thing but for me, I would rather someone get to the damn point such as what happened in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Blade Runner) or The Handmaid's Tale.
Conclusion
I'm happy that I've read this book and now I kind of look forward to watching the mini-series that is advertised on the cover. I had tried to watch it before but found it dreadfully boring perhaps because I hadn't known about the existence of the book, let alone read it.
I think that for adults this book might be a bit too long and perhaps boring because of the aforementioned negatives that I mentioned. Unfortunately there just isn't very much that happens and some readers might think like I did and feel as though they need to friggin get on with it rather than use 40% adjectives in every paragraph.
For younger, more patient readers, this could be something really nice to read because there aren't a lot of complicated words in it that aren't completely made up by the author. He also points out in the footnotes at the bottom of a page what the word actually means so as not to completely confuse readers.
I wouldn't put this on a "must read" list by any means but if you happen to encounter it and have nothing else to read, I can't see any reason to not give it a go. Plus my dog that badly needs a haircut isn't afraid of it and this is always a plus.
It is interesting that I don't usually comment on movie or book review, except this one made me look up dictionary of "who" is warren 🤣🤣🤣 to found out it was old British noun of an enclosed piece of land set aside for breeding game, especially rabbits.
From there, I couldn't stop but to continue reading and finally decided to visit my local book store this afternoon. Thanks for sharing!
Other than that, whilst I was reading your review halfway, I can't help it but to think I did exactly the same, where I spent half a page of my post describing what the environment was, before going into the food I ate 🤣
haha, well sometimes over-explaining a place or situation can be necessary but in this case I really feel as though the author did it so that a 200 page book could become a 600 page book. I normally shy away from books that are this long unless they are books of epic proportions such as "Gone With the Wind," which I am reading now.
Other than Lord of the Rings, this book is likely the longest I have ever taken on and so far anyway, it has been worth it!
Kind of reminds me of Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. I mean loved that book, but there was a portion at the beginning where he spent several pages describing the shoes that one of the characters was wearing. Maybe it wasn't several pages, but it sure did feel like it. I need lots of stopping points too because I am a fairly slow reader. I always get a little annoyed when I am on my Kindle app and it tells me there are more than ten minutes until the end of the chapter.
that's funny about the Kindle stats because I used to go through the same thing. At first I liked it when it would tell you how long it was gonna be but then i began to loathe it.
If a book has too long of chapters there is a very good chance that I am going to forget large swaths of the book as my mind continually wanders and i'll "read" 10 pages or something and then realize I had been thinking about an episode of the Price is Right from 1988 the entire time and have no idea what I just put my eyes on.
I have kind of developed a scanning skill for super long books where I don't actually read every paragraph when they get too wordy but rather just read the first and last sentence where most of the time, the most important information is kept anyway.
Books aren't supposed to be a race, I know, but a lot of times I kind of feel like they are.
That's how my dad, my wife, and my sister read. They can do a book in a day or two and they skip over words like "a", "the", etc. It makes me question how much they actually comprehend. Like if they were quizzed on the book afterwards would they pass?
well i think that you passively become capable of determining what the important information is and when you really need to slow down to take it all in. When I am reading a book that is more than say 300 pages with 10 point font, it is almost always the case that the author is being intentionally flowery and the words being used don't really add much to the plot. I guess we should ask ourselves why are we reading if we aren't going to really take it all in but for me, it is a question of me really just wanting the story.. I don't need every detail about every leaf that is in the current scene.
I doubt they would pass a reading comprehension test. Urgh! I just has a flashback about those horrible portions of standardized testing. I was terrible at that part of it.
Sorry to traumatize you! Working in public education it's pretty much my life...
Yeah, just like TV shows there are many times a 10 episode series could have been done in 3. So a 300 page book could sometimes be done in 100.
Funny I have an eye check up next week as I know I need glasses and have ben avoiding a few books of late. I read Watership Down many years ago. Good habit to read a book at least once per month and not enough people do this today as online and computers have taken over.
online and computers have actually made it more difficult for me to read a book because mine, and I think most other people's attention-span has been destroyed by the fact that we can get instant gratification from the internet. If I am going to have any chance of reading even now when it is "down season" for my job I still need to have basically nothing on my mind or my mind is going to wander while I am reading.
Do you happen to recall what you thought of Watership Down?
Hmmmm I haven't read that one. Thinking I might pass on it as I too am sensitive to the immersion slipping too quickly into self-indulgent over description.
I definitely liked Androids so let us know which fall more into that category too!
Nice to see familiar friends as I attempt the return from my hiatus from the blockchains!
Well the best book that I have read in a long time was The Road which you might already be familiar with from the film. Even if you have seen the film the book is still really good. the Handmaid's Tale was remarkable as well. I do like the dystopian books that have a lesson about the errors of humanity and both of those kind of fall into the same category.
Oh yah I love post apocalyptic stuff and read The Road a while ago and loved it.
Handmaid's Tail is a classic I have never read and may have to after this reminder!