Published: 2 July 2020 (print)/2 July 2020 (audio) 
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton /Hodder & Stoughton
Pages: 307/12 hrs and 27 mins
Narrator: Andrew Wincott
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Fantasy
★ ★ ★ ★ – 4.5 Stars
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.
Jasper Fforde has a fantastic way of creating alternate timelines/universes where it feels so real yet there’s always something slightly off. In Thursday Next it was the Crimean war and airships, and technology to bring back extinct creatures, in The Constant Rabbit there is the unexplained event that anthropomorphised rabbits and a few other creatures. But it happened so long ago, and has been so ingrained in society it’s its now normal.
Having an older narrator was great because being old enough to know about the before times, while having life experience behind him with the new world order worked to give a well-rounded story. There are people who know no different, and those who remember before. And the snippets of information about the years before add another element of this creative world Fforde has built.
Peter was a great character, he was perfectly suited because he was very middle of the road and accepting, but at the same time had a few opinions but still needed to be pushed into a cause. Being surrounded by such a variety of other types of people (and rabbits) was a great way to see that a regular person can make a difference without being presented to us from the beginning as The Hero.
I loved the subtle yet not subtle dig at UKIP and the characters based on certain UK politicians with their xenophobic and racists views. It felt real within the universe Fforde has created, yet mimicked their real world idiotic views. Fforde keeps it in world beautifully but still manages to pointedly state despite their loudness, they are wrong and in the minority.
One thing I adore about Fford’e writing is he’s great at giving you glimpses of future events in the story without telling you any spoilers. They are intriguing enough that you know something happens but not when why or how, and often not even if it will happen in the current book or is just there for story context. But this time we know it’s going to happen in story and it’s those little clues at future events actually makes the waiting more enjoyable because with a type story like this, anything is possible and could happen at any time.
One key highlight was the narrator was fantastic! Wincott had an absolute perfect style of reading this book that I adored from the second I started. I loved the tone used to tell the story, I can’t think how to describe it but it was perfect for this type of narrative. I don’t think it’s entirely down to the writing either (heaven knows I’ve heard some rubbish audio from brilliant texts) because while the tone and writing style of the story was fabulous, it matched perfectly with Wincott’s voice.
The mystical concept of anthropomorphised rabbits and the way society has adapted in such a short period of time was fascinating. There is so little else that is different from our world that having them coexist and the societal rules around that in terms of legislation and polite society was fascinating to read. Fforde always comes up with clever concepts but the execution and the well thought out world building and ground work he lays to have it all make sense is astounding.
There is personal drama, animal politics, and the magical realism we love from these kinds of novels. The tiny details are as important as the bigger ideas and as per usual they are interwoven and threaded together, circled back to and have more impact than you think in pure Fforde creativity.
Honestly, I have to say it again, if you can get this as an audio please do, Wincott smashed it out of the park and I enjoyed the brilliant style in which he read it as much as the story itself.
You can purchase The Constant Rabbit via the following
Wordery | Blackwell’s | Angus & Robertson
Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust | Audible
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