The Book Depository The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde
2138 ratings
TO EXPLORE MORE
Price: £11.26
Brand: The Book Depository
Description: The Constant Rabbit : Paperback : Hodder & Stoughton : 9781444763645 : : 22 Jul 2021 : Jasper Fforde's Sunday Times bestselling new fantastical satire: what happens when a family of human-sized, human-like rabbits moves in next door?. The Book Depository The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: The Book Depository
Product ID: 9781444763645
MPN: 9781444763645
GTIN: 9781444763645
Author: J. Sweetman
Rating: 5
Review: Given that we are all living in the crazy world of lockdown, coping with a pandemic and led by duplicitous, conniving politicians, a land of anthropomorphised rabbits – possibly the result of some ill-fated laboratory experiment, or possibly not – is quite easy to accept! A few foxes and weasels and an African elephant are just the icing on the cake. Anyway, that’s where Jasper Fforde’s book starts off and the arrival of the rabbits is the cue for middle England to complain that they are different from everybody else, they have too many children and, eventually, we will all be overrun. If that kind of language sounds familiar then that’s because it is, and the book tackles the parochial snobbery, the casual and implicit racism, the right-wing tendencies and the smug self righteousness of the British middle classes head on. However, it manages to maintain what is always a difficult satiric and comic balance. Some of the barbs are almost Swiftian and few miss their targets! It made me laugh out loud for good reasons! First off, the rabbits are cleverer, kinder and more sensible than the general population and, over the years, they have acquired rights. They live together peaceably but, of course, the Daily Mail readers (in this world the newspaper is likely called The Actual Truth) are obsessed with their birth-rate and their sexual precocity and view them as a threat. A repressive anti-rabbit government, led by the aptly named Nigel Smethwick of UKARP, employs anthropomorphised foxes and weasels as part of what might be called these days a ‘hostile’ policy. It is all very familiar! Most of the action takes place in a typical Herefordshire village called Much Hemlock where Peter Knox, who works for the Rabbit Compliance Task force because he has the unusual ability to be able to tell one rabbit from another, has lived all his life. He is, however, still something of an outsider in the community because his politics are slightly left of centre. Without giving too much away, he and his daughter befriend the rabbits who arrive while the politicians are plotting to subjugate or even exterminate them. In the process, he crosses a humanoid supremacist group called TwoLegsGood and has problems with his Senior Group Leader whose name Ffoxe betrays his savage and barely concealed origins. It all gets violent, dramatic and very funny and the story has an unexpected twist in its cottontail as well. Along the way, the asides keep on coming as Jasper Fforde lines up contemporary society in his sights and rarely misses. It’s an extremely funny book, absolutely appropriate to our current times and well worth a read. (The Constant Rabbit is published by Hodder & Stoughton. Thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for a fair review.)
Author: BookWorm
Rating: 3
Review: In a surreal alternate version of 2020, humanity has been living alongside 'anthropomorphised' woodland creatures for around 50 years. Think Beatrix Potter style - still animal in appearance but with intelligence equal or greater to a human's, the ability to speak, walk upright, and with certain human tendencies as well as some of their original animal ones. No one knows how the 'anthropomorphising event' came about, but since then the affected rabbits have done what rabbits do and multiplied significantly. Unsurprisingly, given how humans behave towards other members of their own species, the rabbits have faced increasing prejudice and outright discrimination. Within this bizarre set up we are introduced to Peter Knox, a quiet, ordinary man who works as a 'rabbit spotter' for the sinister 'rabbit task force'. Peter has nothing against rabbits but is not brave enough to say so, especially in his rabidly right-wing home counties village. Then a family of rabbits move in next door, and Peter is forced to decide where is loyalties really lie. The book is quite slow to start with along becomes compelling in the second half. I've seen it described as funny - I would put it more in the amusing category, as bits are humorous - but the overall tone is pretty bleak. The satire is a bit clunky and the message is hardly an insightful and surprising one - that humans are often (particularly en masse) intolerant and bigoted doesn't come as news. There are too many real examples of prejudice and suppression of minorities throughout history and the present to relate, without thinking up fictional ones. Unless the fictitious scenario allows us to see reality in a different light, but I'm not sure you can say that about this one. Ultimately it's a bizarre and original book and will be memorable for that reason. I found it hard to put down in the later part. I don't see it as a biting satire or clever commentary in the way that some reviewers have, but if you want to read a book that's unusual, it certainly fits the bill.
