The Constant Rabbit

First of all a little apology to Mr Fforde for the loss of one star. I always love your books but my enjoyment of this one was less than usual because of the rabbits. I felt the same about Watership Down. I just feel uncomfortable about talking rabbits and even more so about ones who walk upright and wear clothes. Note that I do not much care for Beatrix Potter either. Okay having got that out of the way the rest of the book was just great! Fforde\’s terrific sense of satire was there all the way with storylines revolving around the English Local Government, Brexit, racism and idiotic politicians. The local residents in the village fight against the idea of having rabbits living in one of the houses, because they will lower the tone of the area and of course property values. Where have we heard all this before? So some serious issues tackled in an imaginative and humorous way. The ending is sad but realistic (well if you can believe in walking, talking bunnies it is).

Absolutely brilliant. “The Constant Rabbit” is what would have happened if Groucho Marx and George Orwell had decided to write a book together. In other words, a comedy about racism and concentration camps. Only the British and Joseph Heller can pull off satire this good. Now, for those born after the fifties, there was once a very funny comedy about a lost prince in the Middle Ages starring Danny Kaye and Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, and Angela Lansbury. A tag line of that movie was the sequence, “Get it?” “Got it.” “Good.” More importantly, however, is the scene in which Kaye has to remember elaborate mnemonics to determine which container contains the poisoned capsule. The rhymes are things like, “The pellet with the poison\’s in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!\” Naturally the location — and the rhymes — keep getting mixed up because it is, after all, comedy. Variations on this line appear throughout “The Constant Rabbit.” “The Court Jester” was one of my favorite childhood movies. You can watch it on Amazon Prime.

I love Jasper Fforde books and you can tell he’s about had it. This book is back to his true form. And true for most of his books when a dude is the protagonist, they are the true neutral almost simpering foil to the kickass lady and mad world. My take away was seeing the spins that are put on everything that are almost too satirical to be true but unfortunately are in our own reality and to not bend to those arguments as being in any way sound despite the appealing rhetoric. It’s hard because I live in a house divided by these issues and I still can’t fathom how it’s lost. He’s basically already written his own review within the narrative so he knows what we’re here to say already! I say bravo and keep writing its definitely masterful.

I found it hard to decide between three and five stars. fforde is as good as ever at creating his invented world, but it rapidly becomes clear what his target is, and his type of satire doesn\’t quite sit comfortably with it. He isn\’t sardonic enough, I suppose, and that pushed me toward the lower score. Also the ending, while it works fine, is a bit of a cop-out.

Jasper Fforde has written many of my favorite books, so I was excited and bought the pre-release. While it did have its moments, I felt that this book was too politically pushed for my liking, as I’m not a fan of political books or movies.

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