THE CONSTANT RABBIT

Rabbits, foxes, weasels, and other creatures live as humans, among humans in Fforde’s wonderfully absurd new novel.

Fifty-five years ago, the Spontaneous Anthropormorphizing Event resulted in 18 rabbits, “six weasels, five guinea pigs, three foxes, a Dalmatian, a badger, nine bees and a caterpillar” inexplicably becoming, well, anthropomorphized. As time went on, the animals continued to reproduce—especially the rabbits—causing a bit of a political crisis for humans, who are loathe to extend human rights to human-adjacent creatures. Rabbits in particular are subject to cruelty and suspicion because of their rapid reproductive rate, causing political parties like the United Kingdom Anti-Rabbit Party and hate groups like TwoLegsGood (because humans, unlike animals, have two legs, get it?) to rise to immense power. Racism as we know it still exists in this world, as does Brexit. Indeed, "the consequences of the Event seemed to highlight areas of the human social experience that perhaps needed greater exploration, understanding and some kind of concerted action...although once a fringe idea, the notion that the event might have been satirically induced was gaining wider acceptance.” And is there anyone who can write satire quite like Fforde? Perhaps the sharpest, most searing aspect of this brilliant satire is the choice of Peter Knox as narrator. An unassuming human who thinks himself a well-meaning cog in a regrettably evil machine, Knox finds himself at the very center of the rabbit resistance. Not only must he make the choice to atone for the part he has played in the violent government organization RabCoT (Rabbit Compliance Taskforce) and put himself in danger for a greater good, but he learns to embrace a supporting role in a struggle that is not about him at all.

An astonishingly well-crafted work of social and political satire.