fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3616 ]

[ SECRET POST #3616 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3616 ⌋

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

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

__________________________________________________

08.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey, you're really early! :D

Oh dear, I'm going to be such a party pooper.

I enjoyed some of the shenanigans and characters, especially bunny ~~Jesus~~ prophet Fiver and proud xenophile Bigwig.

The group dynamics in the different warrens and within Hazel's followers were really interesting. There's also an interesting parallel between Hazel and General Woundwort, and what Hazel might have become without a reliable dissenter like Fiver around. I also found the hint interesting that Hazel's warren only works perfectly for the time being, because it currently has the perfect size, but that this is going to change eventually. So history repeating itself, the warren developing in different directions etc. remains a definite possibility.

I found some things confusing. Please enlighten me, if you understood those better than I did.

I'm assuming that the rabbits have this ancient/traditional language (hrooloodudu-whatever etc.) that they use for special occasions and a common everyday language that seems to be some kind of animal Esperanto that all the animals in one country/region share (which looks like normal human English, but is probably not supposed to be normal human English). Do the rabbits understand normal human English? They also have two names each: a common name (like Hazel) and a Lapine name. But why do all the 'normal'/'wild' does only have Lapine names?

My Esperanto theory makes sense in relation to how the local rats, cats, dogs are able to speak it perfectly without accent, and Kehaar speaks it with a heavy accent, because he's a foreigner speaking a (for him) foreign language (birds probably have their own kind of bird Esperanto thing going on). But why are the local mice speaking like foreigners?

I also found the whole anthropomorphization of the rabbits in combination with the 'living naturally/as rabbity as possible' and 'the callousness/destructiveness of humans' themes really strange. It doesn't make much sense to me.

So you give your fictional bunnies speech and language, you give them history, religion, mythology, art, the ability to consciously change the way they live etc. Those are extremely anthropomorphic rabbits. Yet those extremely human-like rabbits are desperately fighting for a chance to live, as they see it, as 'naturally' and 'rabbit-like' as possible.

It seems to be implied that the 'bad' warrens went bad, because their rabbits started behaving too much like humans (General Woundword is actually described as unnatural, as not like a rabbit at all). But Hazel and his followers are by no means less human-like or more animal-like or more natural than the rabbits in the 'bad' warrens. They are simply extremely human-like in a different way. I just don't understand what Adams was trying to do here.

My overall impression is that it's a very off-kilter, confused story. However, I think it could have been amazing, if he managed to pull something like that off with more rabbity rabbits, using actual ways real life rabbits would communicate, minimal direct speech etc.

You could argue that my confusion is due to not getting the deliberate ambiguity on the author's part. Certainly possible. I'm usually a great fan of that. But I didn't get the impression of deliberate ambiguity at all. To me it reads like the author himself was confused about what he actually wanted to do and say within his story.

I guess, what it comes down to is that you either buy those rabbits as rabbits or you don't. I've seen a lot of praise about the book in relation to how believably animalistic the rabbits are. But for me that's laughable. They are some of the least animalistic animals in fiction I can imagine.

Those are just the things I don't get, though.

My main issues are length and pacing. It's way too long. I don't know which editions you all read, but mine has 450 pages (that's 450 pages pure text, no introduction, essay, notes). It could have easily done with half of that without losing anything of importance. It was often a battle for me to get through. The pacing as well is often completely off. Most of the time I was simply bored.

tl,dr: There is some serious potential in there, but the execution of it is subpar.

I can't say I enjoyed it very much. All my own fault, because I suggested it myself. I wouldn't have finished it, had I not suggested it, to be honest. Well, at least I've read it now, I guess.

Well, I guess my overall interpretation was kinda different. Maybe my suspension of belief is harder to undermine?

There was a conversation or two where one of the rabbits said "it's because they're not ~natural" and idk if that was actually true, but I didn't really get the impression that wanting to live a different life meant wanting a less or more natural one for the most part, but wanting to avoid really bad things like living under the reign of a selfish tyrant. I can see where you're coming from with that.

I think Lapine was implied to be the language rabbits used 100% of the time unless they were talking to other animals. They used a few Lapine words in the book because there wasn't a good English equivalent, or as a worldbuilding feature, not because those were the only words they spoke actually in Lapine. Likewise I think all their names were in Lapine but they used an English equivalent where possible for the sake of simplicity (for example, Dandelion's actual name would be whatever the Lapine word for "dandelion" is). The author stated at the beginning of the book for example that Fiver and Pipkin's names were Hrairoo and Hlao respectively.

The rabbits had mythology, and storytelling, but they didn't really have art - there was art in Cowslip's warren and the Sandleford rabbits were really confused by it and never understood it - and they didn't really have history (their entire history was just their mythology and I don't think they had much sense of the overall passage of time).

I'm sorry you didn't like it though :( sucks if you were the one to suggest it. If it makes you feel better, I enjoyed it so your suggestion was a good one because it made at least one person happy :)

(I was early because I was refreshing the page to make sure I wouldn't be late! and I might go out later tonight so I didn't want to do a post-and-run. Also I already had my comment typed out on a text doc)

Even their mythology is more tales with a social or cautionary value than entertainment, even if the Sandleford rabbits use it as such on their migration, they don't have the time or the luxury of true art unless farmed like Cowslip's warren is. It is just not a feature of their lives in the way we understand it, it is almost like the primitive tribal tails of human hunter-gatherer societies.

I enjoyed it on the level of simple animals can lead very complicated lives just in a different context from our own..

Oh god, really? I thought they were speaking two different languages the whole time... Now I feel a bit silly.

But why could the cats/dogs/rats (but not the mice) speak perfect Lapine then?

They did have art, though. Don't you remember the bunny poets? I thought it was implied those existed in many warrens.

I think history and mythology were mixed. Some of the stories about El-ahrairah were actually about El-ahrairah, while some of the stories about him were historical in the sense that they were about real rabbits and their deeds, but were told as El-ahrairah stories. Wasn't it implied somewhere close to the end that in the future some of those El-ahrairah stories would be about Hazel?

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I really wanted to like it too. It just didn't happen. However, I loved the other book I was reading at the same time. The comparison didn't really help Watership Down's case, though.

Ok, fair point about the poetry.

I thought other animals all spoke this common uniting tongue, but some of them had really heavy accents or were not portrayed as being able to communicate as well, and I think that was a failing on the author's part (the inconsistency, at least).

What was the other book?

So there were two languages after all? This is too complicated!

OK, so there is a true universal animal language that all animals everywhere speak (to some extent?) + the own language of the different species (like Lapine), yes?

And the rabbits were always talking Lapine with each other, but the universal language with other species? So Kehaar actually spoke Lapine with a heavy accent, not the universal animal tongue with an accent, yes?

Aww, that's sweet. He made such an effort to talk to his favourite bunny.

The other book was In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. That thing is a piece of art. But then, Capote is magic and had more talent in the tip of his little finger than Adams can ever even dream of possessing. Of course, that's just my opinion. :P

And with that last paragraph, you can go fuck yourself good sir or madam.

lol. does the truth hurt, sugar? or why are you so defensive?

I thought Kehaar was speaking the universal language but with an accent.

Not that it has much bearing, to me, on the overall story. I think that's part of the difference in our interpretations.

That looks really depressing but also like it could be really interesting. (Of course, I'm not much one to talk about depressing when the other book I'm reading is about the biggest pandemic in human history and I find it fascinating)

yeah, the language thing is a small part overall, but i found it so confusing. which is why i kept thinking about it to make sense of it.

the book is very depressing. i don't like true crime at all usually, and this didn't change my mind about the genre, even if i think it's excellent.

what is your depressing book?

The Great Influenza by John Barry

He was. The 'hedgerow patois' that they all used to talk with other species. Adams mentions it twice in the book.

It says in the book that Hazel, for instance, spoke to Kehaar in 'hedgerow patios' - basically a language all the animals shared that made them able to speak to one another, or at least to get basic ideas and information across. He used it with the mouse he saved, as well (Adams said 'there is a very simple, limited lingua frnca of the hedgerow and woodland').

So not two languages at all times, just when speaking to animals that didn't speak lapine. I would imagine, in Adams' world, the mice, and birds and foxes and etc. all have their own language; a lot like the diverse languages of Africa, and many people use Swahili to converse across that language barrier.

Like Westron in Middle-earth!

I will take your word for it! :)

oh, i totally missed that he apparently addressed that. thanks for the info! i think the different levels of ability within the common tongue got me on the wrong track.

No worries. :)

My copy has 475 pages, excluding the Lapine glossary at the end.

oh my gosh, the Lapine glossary in mine starts on page 475 that's funny

(it's not actually mine, it's the library's)

Hee! My book actually starts on page 11. Apparently, they count the two pages of 'reviews', the maps, the 'contents' chapter listings pages, and the page with all the printing and copyright info on it into the overall page count.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #3616 ]

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

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

da

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!!!

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!!!

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!!!

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

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