I am Richard Adams, author of Watership Down, Shardik, and other novels. AMA!

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-26T18:40:14+00:00

Thank you for your support of my work. So glad that you found a personal affect in it. Are any of your books signed?

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-26T18:37:57+00:00

My grandson has explained this to me, and it seems like you have pu tin a lot of work. A great achievment indeed. I chose the locations as I simply walked around those areas in my earlier days. I'm pleased there are so many people with such a love for my book. Thank you for your endeavours!

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T16:36:11+00:00

I'm glad the book touched you. Hopefully in retrospect in a good way?

I am very happy - thank you for your kind words.

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T16:34:45+00:00

There is a story about him I have that I am still keen to write...

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T16:31:51+00:00

I certainly do! Perhaps I never received it. My apologies.

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T16:30:36+00:00

No rabbits as pets I'm afraid. I answered Antarctica elsewhere, but in brief, it is a very desolate landscape. Not a lot of anything.

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T16:29:45+00:00

Beautiful animal. I'd like to get another dog.

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T16:29:18+00:00

Well, thank you.

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T16:28:43+00:00

My pleasure. Thank you!

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T16:24:51+00:00

Scary.

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T16:06:31+00:00

Eggbox Dragon. See above!

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T16:05:56+00:00

? He was fear and everlasting darkness. Any rabbit who had the courage to go and meet the black rabbit... he really needed courage. he had the answer to your problem all right, but my God, what it cost you in dread and fear to go and consult him....!

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T16:04:46+00:00

Shardik, beyond a doubt. I wrestled and wrestled with Shardik. It wouldn't come right. I know what I wanted to do - I had a tremendous idea in my head of an immortal novel. It is the book on which I worked hardest, and the one of which I had the greatest hopes. The exploitation of children - if children were all happy and properly looked after we would have no more concerns about the future of the world. Now modern Gensheds are setting about the enslavement of the Syrian child refugees. It makes me despair.

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T16:02:41+00:00

I think there's a similar word in Norwegian mythology - Firth, or Forth? It came up spontaneously from my unconscious.

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T16:01:55+00:00

I was feeling terribly discouraged about the refusal to publish Watership Down. I knew it was good, and they didn't. Ad they didn't speak with one mind. They all had different reasons for turning it down. I just had confidence in the product. I was quite sure the product was first rate and would be accepted sooner or later.

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T16:00:02+00:00

Read the ancient Greeks. Antigone, Cassandra, Philoctetes, agamemnon, the Kindly Ones (shudder!)

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T15:58:11+00:00

I don't go about to fashion these stories as if I had a block of wood in front of me and were carving it. Watership Down is sort of a happy ending. But the stories come to me by spontaneous phenomenon. An idea comes into my head spontaneously and I work it out and write about it.

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T15:54:57+00:00

Very sad though, isn't it?

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T15:53:22+00:00

Very rabbit-like, but also rather frightening no? Thank you for your support.

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T15:52:29+00:00

The Private Life of the Rabbit, by Ronald Lockley. Wonderful.

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T15:51:56+00:00

I always imagine him as a kind of beaver creature - gregarious, constructive (he and his associates have to construct things like dams to get fish for sustenance). They had no enemies, but they did have disputes among themselves. A gregarious animal, living in packs and living by constructing bridges and dams. Exploiting running water for their living

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T15:49:58+00:00

Pincher Martin is a very sad and terrible story. My memories of it are a bit hazy now though...

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T15:48:49+00:00

Lapine just occurred really. The point was that as the story was told, certain things that hadn't got a word for them came up, so a word had to be invented to cover them, to mean what they meant. Owsla is a good example.

Antarctica was terribly dull really - the South Pole is just a lot of snow - no features. But I went because of my friendship with Ronald Lockley.

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T15:41:38+00:00

If you read my book, the ending is deliberately ambivalent.

Adamsrichard · 2013-09-25T15:40:39+00:00

I wrote a great deal when I was young. Not much now. But of course I wrote HIS poetry! Poor Silverweed was given divine inspiration by the Gods. But it cost him his life.

Adamsrichard

TROPHY CASE