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“Peter Knox lives quietly in one of
those small country villages that's up for the Village Garden of the Year
award. Until Doc and Constance Rabbit move in next door, upsetting the locals
(many of them members of governing political party United Kingdom Against Rabbit
Population), complicating Peter's job as a Rabbit Spotter, and forcing him to
take a stand, moving from unconscious leporiphobe to active supporter of the
UK's amiable and peaceful population of anthropomorphised rabbits.”
Once again, Jasper Fforde –the love
child of Douglas Adams and Monty Python –spins a delirious alternate universe
tale full of absurdness and satirical humor and present them in an ordinary way
that will appeal to readers who want something different –yet still very familiar-
in their fiction.
On the 12th of August in 1965, a mysterious, unexplained “event” took place which led to 18 rabbits morphing into semi human shapes. Also included were an elephant, six weasels, five guinea pigs, three foxes, a Dalmatian, nine bees, and a caterpillar (which remains to this day in “s/he’s chrysalis at the Natural History Museum; and the bees? No one has any ideas what happened to the bees”). But rabbits do what rabbits have a tendency to do, so they spread all over and into large colonies. But for some –those who formed the UKARP and also the Prime Minister Nigel Smetwick who on a surprise election in 2012- see them as undesirables and work to figure out a way to banish them.
Of all his works, this may be the most topical, as it takes on racism, fake news, xenophobia, and the need for those who have power to ridicule and demean anyone who acts and thinks “differently.” But ultimately it’s still a fun and witty book with three-dimensional characters, in a believable setting, filled with the typical Welsh dry sense of humor, the absurdness of political bureaucracy, and the drinking of dandelion brandy (“the diabolical 3-way love child of methanol, crack cocaine & U-Boat fuel”).
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