fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3616 ]

[ SECRET POST #3616 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3616 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #517.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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So I had no idea what this book was about going into it even though I'd head it before. Did not expect it to be a book about rabbits. But it was a very good book about rabbits.

My experience reading books about adventures from an animal's point of view is mostly Redwall, so I thought a little of that going in. But this was very different from Redwall. I'm not really surprised that Adams basically eschewed all anthropomorphization beyond some personality features and added intelligence (though it was interesting the pains he took to point out that rabbits are still kinda dumb even when they're thinking a little bit like us, like their inability to count past four or to understand why sitting on wood lets you float), but I was a bit surprised by how dark the story actually was. It was not by any means a children's book. It felt very unique to me in being a book about animals with lots of flowery prose about nature that had very adult themes and a fair amount of gore.

I was impressed with how well the characters were developed considering the restrictions within which the author was working. Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig, Holly, Blackberry, etc. all had such unique and interesting personalities. I think my favorite rabbit was Bigwig. I admire his tenacity and relate to his tendency sometimes to see things in black-and-white and go directly at a problem to get to the other side.

General Woundwort was a really excellent villain and I was engaged enough with the conflict with him and disgusted enough by him as a person to really wish Bigwig had killed him during the invasion on Honeycomb. :/ What a nasty piece of work. He felt like the rabbit version of a narcissist, too.

I was a little bit disappointed at the secondary nature of does as characters, especially given that this story was originally written for the author's daughters! I don't know if that's a product of the author or the times but it seems most likely to be a product of trying to stay true to rabbit biology, and also needing a plot device to compel Hazel's warren to explore and return to Efrafa. He didn't give a good explanation though as to why no does had traveled with them from Sandleford in the first place. How likely is it that out of ten or twelve migrants not a single one would be female, when the only criterion for joining the expedition was "I want to go"? Maybe does just don't migrate much and that wasn't well explained?

That said I liked the does we had, especially Hyzenthlay. (I don't know why their names were all in Lapine and longer and more complicated than the names of the bucks, though, and some were annoying to remember.) Speaking of, I thought the development and use of Lapine was a really charming and well-crafted piece of worldbuilding. My favorite word is hrududu. ^_^

My favorite overall character has to be Kehaar. I loved his personality and I loved reading his accent. I really liked the friendship he developed with the rabbits, unlikely as that sort of thing is ever to happen in the wild IRL. And he had some of the most entertaining lines.

Last thing - I really loved the development of rabbit mythology and all the stories about El-ahrairah. Especially the part about Frith blessing El-ahrairah's bottom in the first story. :) One of my favorite features of the book overall. And finally, I loved the epilogue and El-ahrairah coming to take Hazel's spirit away. <3 Very sweet ending, and I'm a real sucker for those!

What about you, F!S? What was your overall impression of the story? Did you like it? Who were your favorite characters? What did you think of the worldbuilding in the confines of the setting? What did you think about Efrafa and General Woundwort? Tell me your thoughts!

It is a children's book, it just is not a modern children's book. This was a book for the last generation of kids who knew anything about how the countryside works. Ever since it has been sanitized cutesy tosh, and even kids that grow up in the countryside don't really know how it works. We have GPS controlled robot tractors now FFS, and a farmer spends more time in his home office ~~surfing the internet for porn~~ filling out subsidy applications than he does walking the lanes. If there are any lanes left in his land, that hasn't been ripped up to form poor quality arable or grazing land to get him a few extra bits of subsidy cash.

that's fair. I don't know much about the countryside now, let alone before I was born and on the other side of the pond. However, in the intro to the book (edition that I have anyway) Adams said it wasn't intended to be a children's book, so I went into it thinking it wouldn't be.

Edited 2016-11-28 04:17 (UTC)

It is a book that seems to appeal to people of all different ages, from children to old people, and the author said it was not a childrens' book.

The parts at Efrafa have always been my favorite. I love that trope of finding a place that seems perfect and then discovering the dark secrets underneath. You'd think with the popularity of dystopians I would have plenty of other stories to get that from, but few seem to actually take the time to build up the good reputation so that the disillusionment has an impact and can create that slow-building dread as you and the characters come to realize that something is very wrong.

Yes, and Holly's recounting of it was really good and one of the most gripping parts of the story! I thought that was done just as well too if not better at Cowslip's warren. I knew something was off, partly because of how perfect everything seemed and partly because of Fiver, but when it all came together it was like oh shit!

DA I always found Cowslip's warren more horrifying, especially when I read it as a kid. Efrafa is brutal but in its way it's a more ... overt, honest brutality? It's a military dictatorship. But the Snare Warren just felt more ... insidious. The way they just pretended nothing was happening, that they were willing to allow some of their own to die to be safe and well-fed. I'm not sure exactly why it felt worse than Efrafa to me, it just did.

Yes, it did to me as well. Efrafa was overt, and most outsiders could recognise it and take steps against it, either to fight it or to run. The Snare Warren was more like a carnivorous plant baited with nectar. I really felt for Strawberry this time around; it hadn't really hit me before that his partner had been snared.

His doe was snared? I missed that. Woooow. :(

It isn't said in so many words, but he was deeply distressed when he joined the Sandleford rabbits, and actually spoke about the snares - and later on, someone, I think it was Hazel, said that his doe had stopped running. I finally put two and two together this time around.

I can definitely see that! It was really fucking creepy and sinister.

Ha, that's interesting! :) I found the rabbits extremely human-like, which is why the book as a whole didn't work for me.

Apart from Fiver, Bigwig and Kehaar were my favourites too. The moment at the beginning, when Bigwig almost died in the trap, was one of the very few times in the book, where I actually cared what happened. I don't think, I could have brought myself to continue reading without Bigwig around.

The treatment of the female rabbits by the author really confused and disappointed me too. Because they were (for me) so much like humans, and yet treating the does as anything but breeding stock would be stretching the imagination too far for those anthropomorphic rabbits, because real life rabbits wouldn't be like that?

That doesn't really change in Hazel's warren either. The interactions between Bigwig and the does go in a slightly different direction. But when they settle in their new warren, they are definitely better treated, but the status quo doesn't change. Also suddenly having been completely oppressed by an autocratic government and under constant threat as well as past experiences of sexual coercion etc. don't really matter anymore, because - according to what's her face - the Efrafran does were mostly miserable, because they weren't allowed to dig. Meaning returning to a 'natural' life works as an instant cure. Yet the bucks who came from or have been to Efrafra show clear signs of trauma from their experiences.

I would agree with the anon above. It's definitely a children's book in my eyes.

I'm not in the book club, but i've read Watership Down every year - sometimes twice a year - since I first read it way back as a teen. And i've loved it fiercely ever since, not only as a wonderful and interesting and emotional story, but as the book that introduced me to some amazing poetry.

I love the language of the book; the dense descriptions of plants, water, weather. I love the mythological way the rabbit history is told, and how the storytellers all seem to speak in a slightly more formal and 'fairy tale' way when telling a story.

I love how similar, but how very, very different, the animals are. Things that would bother humans a lot are shrugged off, and things we take for granted (like clouds. The passage where they're first climbing the down, and see the clouds...that's just so amazing, and beautiful, and other-worldly....) are strange and new to them. The bridge over the Test river! The road! Just so neat.

I think the does didn't come away when Hazel and the rest did because does are not the ones, in rabbit life, that wander. Lone rabbits or a group of young, male rabbits may do that, but does need and count on the safety and security of the warren to make dens and carry, and raise kits. A doe wandering away from the warren and trying to live out in the open would be extra-vulnerable if she were carrying or had babies.

I think we got a doe's perspective very neatly from the Efrafa does; they wanted to dig their own homes, and choose their own mates, and raise their kits in peace. They had their own secret, internal lives, that revolved a bit more around warren life and babies than the males, even though the males were as eager to start families as the females were. They were brave and sensible when they escaped, and even though their senses and knowledge had been blunted by their restricted lives, they still learned quickly and had enough instinctual knowledge to keep them going.

Even though anthropomorphized, they're still *animals* - reproducing enough to maintain and continue the warren and the species is still the main goal. And that never bothered me.

hey, you post in the book club thread, you are in the book club! :p

Yay!
*pins on badge*

yeah there's no formal membership or anything. anyone is welcome to read the book for the month whenever they like :)

I think the does didn't come away when Hazel and the rest did because does are not the ones, in rabbit life, that wander. Lone rabbits or a group of young, male rabbits may do that, but does need and count on the safety and security of the warren to make dens and carry, and raise kits.

Excellent point, and one that had completely escaped me! He actually states in the story that Mr Locksley tells us that it's the males who wander, too. I just hadn't joined up the dots.

Yes! Another book I really want to get - the rabbit book by Mr. Locksley!

ah, wonderful comment! I like the descriptors you use here. And yes, the poetry was very good!

Excellent point about the does!

Do you have a favorite character or favorite arc?

Of them all, I loved Fiver best. Poor little Cassandra rabbit, sleeping out all night in the rain, knowing without being believed. He found love and home and happiness, in the end, and that was lovely.

I very much enjoyed his and Hazel's friendship, as well, though sometimes Hazel was a bit of a prat.

I loved Kehaar, too - wild, wandering, courageous fellow! And even though the stealing and fighting with Efrafa was exciting, I liked them becoming canny rovers, learning to live without a warren discovering their own flaws and talents, the most.

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[ SECRET POST #3616 ]

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Re: Book club - November discussion for Watership Down!!!

Re: Book club - November discussion for Watership Down!!!

Re: Book club - November discussion for Watership Down!!!

Re: Book club - November discussion for Watership Down!!!

Re: Book club - November discussion for Watership Down!!!