Richard Adams At Eighty

Contemporary Review, August, 2000 by Joan Bridgman

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.