I don't normally wait several months to write a review — typically, either I write it right away, or I don't write one at all (or, at least not until I re-read it again). But I'm making an exception this time, firstly, because Watership is an exceptional book, but also because I've had some thoughts hopping around (yuk, yuk) in my head for awhile.

With any book that makes strong allusions to classical works, as Watership does, there's a strong compulsion to point out those allusions one notices. Traces and more-than-traces of works like Aeneid and Odyssey thread their way through the story, as do other references. I caught some of them, probably missed a bunch more. Others have done that sort of thing better than I ever could, so I will neither bore you with pointing out the allusions I noticed, nor embarrass myself by failing to note the ones I missed.

Looking at the story on its own merits, however, one particular repeated theme throughout the book is that of possibility. From Hazel's leadership to Bigwig's stubbornness to El-ahrairah's clever manipulations, the rabbits must learn the limits of their capabilities with each new challenge that crops up — or that they seek out.

To be sure, I am distinguishing possibility from potentiality. Potential is something that could happen, given the right circumstances, will and motivations. In effect, potential relies on probabilities, specifically the kind that can be calculated and bet upon. Could a group of rabbits survive a nighttime foray through hostile woods and rifle-toting man-guarded fields? Likely not, but who really knows? Potential is rhetorical, a question, and therefore, meaningless.

Possibility, however, is fact. Either something is possible, or it isn't, and the only way to know which it is, is to accomplish it. Hazel leads the rabbits on their overnight trek, and when it is done, they have seen what is possible. Likewise, Bigwig can only know whether he is able to stand against Woundwort and the Efrafans by, of course, standing against them. Potential doesn't matter; only what is possible matters.

This is not to say that deliberation is never useful, or that one should do things without considering the consequences. But for the rabbits of the Down, such deliberation is short and, for the most part, deals with the details of how, not whether, to do something: Hazel listens, then leads. Neither is it to say that all things are possible. Failures happen, and rabbits die in the attempt.

But it's the ones who languish, the ones who fail to learn what is possible for them, that have it the worst. Those who remain in Sandleford warren despite Fiver's predictions of destruction die climactically; the laconic rabbits of Cowslip's warren die more slowly, but just as surely; the Efrafans have little more than a living death, and then they die.

Ultimately, it is achievement, the discovery what is possible, which spurs others to do their own great things. El-ahrairah, the Prince with a Thousand Enemies, is also the Prince of a Thousand Deeds, for with his cunning wit, he has outdone each of those enemies. And as Hazel's deeds are attributed to El-ahrairah at the end, it is understood that all of the feats of heroes past are not merely stories but reports, accounts of achievement rather than fantastical tales. If they seem impossible, it is only because we have not done them yet — and we will never know whether they are possible until we do.