Today is Someday: Book 1 - Watership Down

          This is the first book in my Today is Someday series.  I'd hoped to like this more than I did and I hope the next should-already-have-read-classic is better.  A few more like this one and my list will quickly relapse back into I'm Fine With Tomorrow Being Someday.

          I first failed to read Watership Down in High School (at that time it had been around for only a few years and was assigned reading).  I could only get through a few chapters back then and wrote a paper from the cliff notes...as I occasionally did when I was fifteen.

          Now, I can truthfully say I've read it.  I've lied to myself and others for almost forty years.

          The plot was interesting.  The suspense was deftly handled.  The characters are wonderfully solid.  But...the author was not able to always keep me in the story (as I believe is the job of good authors).

          Violations of proper grammar abound.  Odd, clunky, and irritating changes in tone and point of view continually throw the reader off the page.  First person becomes third person singular switches to third person dual which slides into omniscient and then quickly shifts to detached.  It feels like two dozen short stories instead of a 24-chapter book (which made more sense to me after I read the introduction, which I did after reading the book because whenever a forty year old book contains a 'new introduction' it most-probably contains spoilers).

          Then there is this type of constant foolishness:

          "I need to clearly explain my dissatisfaction," Veach thought. "But I wonder what would be a good way to do that?"
          "There are some problems which could easily have been fixed with a good editor," Veach said. "Because.  Of all the many ways to smoothly mix a character's thoughts and dialogue this, dear reader, is definitely not one of them."