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A review by screamdogreads
Rabbits by Hugo Rifkind
4.0
"When the shotgun went off under Johnnie Burchill's brother's chin, word had it, the top of his head came off like the top of a turnip lantern. Then it got stuck, by means of a jagged triangle of bone, into the upholstery of the roof of the Land Rover. A thing like that spreads around. The story, I mean. Not the head."
A hedonistic whirlwind of a novel, Rabbits so delightfully captures the testosterone fueled awkwardness of youth, the fierceness of loyalties tested, it captures so very beautifully the anxiety ridden ferality of being young and it does so with this blissful, drugged up numbness. It's aristocratic excessiveness in a novel, it's a hugely entertaining thing, a story of friendships, murder, danger and drug fueled stupefaction. It's a novel of being an outsider in a place where you do not belong, and, it's a highly self-indulgent thing, as perhaps all the greatest novels are. Knowing absolutely nothing of the author, or the novel itself, going into this, the only idea I had of it was "Saltburn with kilts" - what a fantastic surprise it was. It's a hidden delight, a gem shining amongst the dirt. The whole thing is slightly fuzzy around the edges, blurring and swirling, forever shifting what it's really about.
Certainly, this kaleidoscopic story deserves to be more well known than what it is. And, it's clear, that with this novel, Rifkind has written about what he knows most intimately - aristocratic success and posh boarding school experiences. Told to us by an only sometimes lovable, slightly unreliable narrator, Rabbits takes on the form of a fictional autobiography, one that's populated by extremely unlikeable, irritating, arrogant and at worst, utterly detestable people who only seem to sink lower as the story unfurls. Rabbits offers up a stark and shocking glimpse at a world fueled by parties, drugs, careless attitudes and far, far too many guns. It's all so very compulsively readable, a blazing blur, tinged with a smoky haze in which its mystery hides.
A hedonistic whirlwind of a novel, Rabbits so delightfully captures the testosterone fueled awkwardness of youth, the fierceness of loyalties tested, it captures so very beautifully the anxiety ridden ferality of being young and it does so with this blissful, drugged up numbness. It's aristocratic excessiveness in a novel, it's a hugely entertaining thing, a story of friendships, murder, danger and drug fueled stupefaction. It's a novel of being an outsider in a place where you do not belong, and, it's a highly self-indulgent thing, as perhaps all the greatest novels are. Knowing absolutely nothing of the author, or the novel itself, going into this, the only idea I had of it was "Saltburn with kilts" - what a fantastic surprise it was. It's a hidden delight, a gem shining amongst the dirt. The whole thing is slightly fuzzy around the edges, blurring and swirling, forever shifting what it's really about.
Certainly, this kaleidoscopic story deserves to be more well known than what it is. And, it's clear, that with this novel, Rifkind has written about what he knows most intimately - aristocratic success and posh boarding school experiences. Told to us by an only sometimes lovable, slightly unreliable narrator, Rabbits takes on the form of a fictional autobiography, one that's populated by extremely unlikeable, irritating, arrogant and at worst, utterly detestable people who only seem to sink lower as the story unfurls. Rabbits offers up a stark and shocking glimpse at a world fueled by parties, drugs, careless attitudes and far, far too many guns. It's all so very compulsively readable, a blazing blur, tinged with a smoky haze in which its mystery hides.
"A whole doomed world teetering on the edge of an entropy. I recognised even then, and perhaps even reveled in, but without ever quite grasping what entropy entails. And it has taught me, I suppose, that you can't cling on to things that are crumbling. Because you will break your nails, and you will fall, and then you will look back up and wonder how it can be that something which once seemed as solid as stone itself is now barely there at all."
How lovely it was to experience a slice of Dark Academia that challenges typical convention by being cast not stateside, but in Scotland instead. Rabbits is part The Secret History, part Saltburn, part These Violent Delights, and part the best bits of a genre stretched all too thin and losing its meaning. It's a return to what Dark Academia should be, a murder mystery dedicated to the epicurean elite. Everything contained within Rabbits is about superiority, or at least, the fragile perception of it. In the end, it's a tale as old as time, the unhinged behavior of teenage boys with too much money, the discarding of empathy that comes with feeling untouchable.
Despite the drama of it all, it's in no way, a fast-paced story. In fact, everything stretches out in a rather slothful manner. By no means is this the perfect dark academia novel, in fact, perhaps it's much better described as a murder mystery suffused with academic undertones, regardless, it's an enjoyable, wonderful, soulful novel.
"Do long summer evenings ever make you depressed? I know they're not supposed to. They do me, though, and I think it started then, after Alan had gone. The warmer the night, the greater the scented potential, the bleaker I felt."