Richard Adams At Eighty

RICHARD Adams, who has just celebrated his eightieth birthday, can look back on a remarkable life where fame arrived unexpectedly at the age of 52. There had been little to forecast this during the anonymous years of public school, wartime service and 25 years in the Civil Service -- all powerful influences towards conformity and convention. But, irritated by sentimental rabbit tales and enraged by the permissive society of the 1960s, he stepped into another life in writing Watership Down, a book about rabbits intended for his children. Although only published in a first edition of 2,500 in 1972, it was initially hailed as a children's classic and progressed to large sales when it was selected by Kaye Webb for Puffin because she was delighted by the way the rabbits talked to each other 'Like civil servants'.

With American publication it became an adult and world-wide bestseller, selling over a million copies in record time. In 1985 Penguin Books declared it second in their list of all time bestsellers with sales figures of 5 million, second only to Animal Farm, but ahead of The Canterbury Tales and The Odyssey. It transformed the public perception of rabbits from that of cuddly bunnies into heroic warriors who fought savagely for dominance, and who were described with a degree of biological realism unheard of in children's fiction. The animals defecated (passed hraka), sought mates and conceived young. Even the rabbit equivalent of a miscarriage, the reabsorption of young, is described. Although The Times's recent obituary of the naturalist, Robin Lockley, described the naturalist's book, The Private Life of the Rabbit, as the inspiration for Watership Down this was not the case. Adams did not discover Lockley's book until he was about halfway through his first version. It did help to add biological exactitude a nd the holograph shows his subsequent revisions to credit female rabbits with the leading role played in digging warrens. Indeed, Lockley has been heard to say that the major storyline of a band of bucks going off in search of a new warren was impossible. They would have left more sensibly as mated pairs -- but this would have destroyed the plot.

The world of children's publishing was not prepared for a book of such stunning originality and the typescript was rejected several times. 'It was seven times a lemon' says Adams, who has carefully preserved the rejection letters. He wrote the novel unaware of the conventions of length, age range, level of difficulty and acceptable subject matter in the genre of juvenile publishing at that time. It was first published by the small publishing firm of Rex Collings, who admired the typescript precisely because it did not fit the formula, a judgment vindicated when the book became a critical and commercial success. Sales have been given continuing impetus by B.B.C. radio readings, an animated film, a musical version, a dramatic performance in Regent's Park and currently a children's television series. It has never dropped out of the public consciousness for long. The title has become synonymous with rabbits. London cabbies say of the garrulous 'He's got more rabbit than Watership Down'. Enterprising butchers adv ertised 'You've read the book, you've seen the film, now eat the cast'.

Richard Adams celebrated his eightieth birthday in May of this year, surrounded by his family which now includes his daughters and sons-in-law and six grandchildren. He must have looked around the festive tables with some satisfaction since earlier in his marriage he longed for children. This early frustration is one of the ingredients of Watership Down, where a questing band of buck rabbits search for a new warren and then realise that without mates and progeny to populate it their trials were worthless. Like Hazel, the hero of his novel, Adams felt the primitive delight in the continuation of his blood as he looked at his descendants: '. . . the extraordinary feeling that strength and speed were flowing inexhaustibly out of him into their sleek young bodies and healthy senses'. One granddaughter is already a published author.

Adams can also look back on a career of contradictions, half spent anonymously as a civil servant and the rest in the public eye as the author of a world-wide bestselling novel. With the huge and continuing commercial success of this novel his life changed irrevocably. The civil service post was resigned and the family removed to the Isle of Man to avoid the punitive tax system of the time. All was changed and changed utterly. Huge sales in the United States guaranteed his financial future. He became a campus cult there because of the book's environmental concerns and sympathy for animal rights and the result of this was that he was in demand as a writer-in-residence. A year of tax exile and several stints at American universities entailed separation from his family which was effectively blown apart by the novel's success.

It took American marketing to place the book in the adult publishing list where the greatest sales are made. 'This isn't about a bunny. It's about life and death', declared Connie Clausen at Macmillan in promoting the novel's appeal across the age ranges. Like J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, Watership Down has what is now termed 'crossover appeal'. Adams enchanted his publicity team by taking to the 'shocking hucksterism' of book promotion like a duck to water and taking the repeated question 'Why rabbits?' in his stride. He was the epitome of the American idea of an Englishman, willingly posing for photographs hailing a taxi on Fifth Avenue with a rolled umbrella, dressed in waistcoat, old school tie and bowler hat. He travelled with English marmalade, an egg cup and insisted on English mustard. Although he fitted the stereotype, his readiness to talk without reserve was untypical. Interviewers were surprised, too, by his personality. They expected this author to be 'a gentle soul, rather misty-eyed abou t Nature, probably someone shy and retiring', but, 'He is in fact feisty, rather pugnacious . . . extraordinarily talkative and utterly unsentimental - though at the same time subject to swift tears . . . all these aspects of this remarkable personality were on view in rapid succession

This remarkable personality did not go down so well with English critics when they interviewed Adams. Reviews for Watership Down were lyrical - Edward Blishen spoke of his 'trembling pleasure' on reading the book, but reviews and promotional interviews for subsequent novels were far less enthusiastic. Adams became so disappointed with critical reactions to his later novels that he was reluctant to be interviewed. Shardik, The Plague Dogs, The Girl in a Swing, Maia and Traveller have been major bestsellers in spite of hostile critics. A.N. Wilson reported that he could not admire the later work as much as he genuinely revered Watership Down. The Times critic said of Maia that it was a book not to be tossed aside lightly but to be thrown with great force - an unattributed quotation from Dorothy Parker. The mixed reception for later novels may be due to envy at the windfall fortune earnt by the first novel. A Lake District sheep farmer explained the hostility of critics in the pithy statement: 'Well, you did in your spare time, Richard, what they have been trying to do all their bloody lives'.

Surely the time has come for a fairer appraisal of an author who has tackled so many different subjects and won bestselling sales with at least six novels? Adams is far from being confined to the category of animal and nature writer. Shardik is concerned with a religious cult focused on a bear (not anthropomorphised) and is set in the primitive past of a fantasy empire where the author invents a new world with its own geography, religion, customs, language and fauna. It is a sustained exercise of the imagination, as distanced from the reader as science fiction. It owes much to Adams's Jungian analysis in its depiction of deep mythic levels originating in the unconscious mind. This is an undertow in all Adams's work.

Joseph Campbell's study of comparative myth The Hero With a Thousand Faces, also based on Jung's view of the collective unconscious, is a continuing influence. Campbell's theory of the basic pattem common to all myth, that of the hero's journey into a realm of terrors to bring back some boon to save himself and his people is a powerful ingredient in the best tales. The theory of this monomyth made Adams realise that 'all the stories in the world are really one story'. (George Lucas, the producer of Star Wars, based his film on Campbell's theory and the huge success of the film impressed other filmmakers to follow the pattern of the monomyth in their choice of 'high concept' plots.) The Girl in a Swing represents another departure. It is set in the contemporary world and is an erotic ghost story. There is a mythical dimension to the novel in that the heroine is possessed intermittently by the goddess Aphrodite. This novel has tremendous narrative grip and has commanded a readership second only to Watership Do wn in the public lending right figures. The Plague Dogs is a polemic against animal experimentation and is set in the modern world with human and animal characters. Maia is a return to Bekia, telling the progress of 15-year-old bedslave from prostitution to respectable marriage. An actual historical period is the setting for Adams's novel Traveller, which has a solidly researched background in the American Civil War. It tells the story of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's horse, Traveller. The narrative is composed of a series of equine monologues addressed to Tom, the stable cat. The horse's behaviour is backed by research into The Mind of the Horse by Lucy Rees. As with many of his novels, the ending is genuinely moving, with a sure touch on scenes of death.

Adams has not lost his inventive energy in spite of advancing years. Last year he returned to the characters of his first success with the publication of Tales from Watership Down and has enjoyed renewed success with his rabbit adventures. This year has seen the publication of a novel where the protagonist is, unusually, a folksong. The song, also the title, is The Outlandish Knight (Seven House Publishers Ltd. [pounds]17.99. ISBN 0-7278-5496-8). Adams has long had an interest in folksong which he both sings and plays on a recorder. The narrative follows the song and one family through three generations from 1485 until the execution of the Babington plotters. The narrative imposes difficulties for both author and reader in that although the song remains a constant the characters change with each generation, making heavy demands on the ingenuity of the author and the reader's attention. The England of six centuries ago is vividly realised, with its savagery, sights and smells. The conception of folksong as a linking technique in the action and the numerous other songs with musical notation in the text is an original idea.

Our author's life has now come full circle with his return some years ago to his native Hampshire. He lives in a charming eighteenth-century house, hardly a stone's throw from the river Test and deep in the English countryside he describes so lovingly in his first and most magical novel. Indeed it is not far from the actual territory which is the setting for the rabbits of Watership Down. The house reflects the interests of its inhabitants - a large well-stocked cellar, an impressive library, some wonderful porcelain on which Mrs Elizabeth Adams is an authority and it is set in a garden ablaze with roses and dahlias. Sadly the last of the border collies is no more. He was called Tetter after a quotation from the Ghost in Hamlet, 'With a most instant tetter barked about'. He had his moment of fame when called to demonstrate his obedience at an industrial tribunal against an enraged gamekeeper. 'Author's Collie Takes Stand on Grumpy Gamekeeper' screamed the headline the next day. Tetter performed impeccably an d the case was won. In spite of three hip replacements, Adams manages to visit his local pub to play piquet most evenings and continues to write. He has recently returned from a trip to America to help launch Camp Fiver, a recreational camp for underprivileged children in New York State. This is a philanthropic project organised by a rich admirer of Watership Down who named the camp after his favourite rabbit in the story - an instance of the continuing influence of the tale, which like Fiver's blood in the novel is passed on through generations.

They say that the great secret of success in this country is longevity. Only live to be eighty and you will be a hero or a guru. This must be true because I read it in The Mail on Sunday on 30 April. In this case Richard Adams is a literary giant. Why in his eightieth year has this man of letters not been honoured? He has produced six major novels, one at least an enduring classic, together with several collections of short stories, travel writing, poetry and works on natural history. He has been president of the R.S.P.C.A., an animal rights campaigner and active in the campaign to restore the land of Greenfield Common to the people. In his time as a civil servant he put in train the Clean Air Act and the Thames Barrage - London may be grateful for no more choking smog or fear of inundation. He travels widely to give lectures and readings. Although Adams is a world-wide bestselling author the literary establishment of Britain has been dismissive. 'Probably no other contemporary novelist suffers from so much condescension or critical dismissal from so many literary intellectuals' commented Phillip Vine in 1985. It seems that popularity and large sales cannot command literary merit. But maybe the time has come for a reappraisal. There has been some recognition. He has been made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and had the social accolade of lunch with the Queen. In any case, Adams's large and faithful readership ignore the literati and the critics. They buy his books in huge numbers, because they enjoy them. The hackneyed phrase of the blurb writer 'a master storyteller' happens, in Adams's case, to be true.

Dr Joan Bridgman did her doctoral thesis at University College London on the publishing history of Watership Down. She has been a tutor in English literature at the Open University.

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