#011 - The S&L Podcast: We're tharn over Watership Down
Tuesday, August 19, 2008 at 3:54PM
Hey everyone! We're back, and recording from the New Media Expo in Las Vegas (OK, we were there last week, it took me some time to get this posted...). We've just finished up Watership Down, and we hope you enjoyed it. Tom is going all dictator on us next time around, so he'll be posting his choice for the next book soon! Here are the show notes:
Bunnies as a community
The interactions are based on real rabbit behavior, but there is a lot of humanity in them to make us able to grasp their situations/feelings etc.
What do you think of the blend?
The stories of El-Haraihrah
Mike - I think my favorite segments of the book are the stories about El-Ahrairah. He is quick and clever, not above a prank or two and fiercely loyal to his people. In many ways his stories reminded me of Sūn Wùkōng (Monkey King) from Journey to the West (although to be fair El-Ahrairah is a little less irrepressable).
Why do you think Adams put these segments in? Do they just fill more pages? Does the addition of the mythology add depth and meaning to the rabbit society and characters? What do you think?
Sh1mm3r - I thought of the mythological trickster at first, but I think El-Ahrairah is unique in that he uses his trickster abilities to protect his "people." I like how the stories add a mythology to the rabbit culture, but also seem to encourage and inspire them to solve their own problems creatively.
Disappointed in Fiver
Sam! - I feel like Adams made a promise to us as his audience. He's presented us with a warren of rabbits, living in what seem to be our world, doing all of the things that real rabbits do... except for Fiver. He's the one who starts us on our journey and ultimately moves us along throughout the entire novel. (sandelford, cowslip, the fox, hazel's shooting and rescue, even his blessing of the trip to efrafa). In each scenario, his predictions turn out to be spot on. Adams' promise was that this one outside force (fiver) was there for a reason that would be made clear before the story finished.
My question is simply.. Did he keep to his promise? Do we, as an audience, believe in fiver as a rabbit of the watership down warren... or do we view him as a storytelling mechanic used to take us from act to act? Why is it that Fiver alone (with the arguable exception of one of the efrafan does) has this magic ability? And, further, is the ability justified?
Nick W - I found fiver added a large amount of interest to the story due to how very dark his predictions were, the hill covered in blood, the ceiling held up with bones, but even though he added interest he did seem simply like a tool to guide the story along.
It seems like Adams tossed the other doe in efrafa in so as to say "See, he's not the only one that can do this". I would of believed his abilities more (and seen him less as a tool) if all of the rabbits had some psychic ability, Fiver's just being extra strong.
Perhaps Fiver discovered a worm that excreted a powerful spice.
Metaphors?
Adams has said he did not intend Watership Down as a metaphor. But many paralels can be drawn?
Totalitarian/Militaristic Society
Rebellion
The Heroes Journey
Wikipedia entry draws parallels to hero journey stories like the Odyssey.
Tolkien scholar John Rateliff calls Adams's novel an Aeneid "what-if" book: what if the seer Cassandra (Fiver) had been believed and she and a company had fled Troy (Sandleford Warren) before its destruction? What if Hazel and his companions, like Aeneas, encounter a seductive home at Cowslip's Warren (Land of the Lotus Eaters)? Rateliff goes on to compare the rabbits' battle withWoundwort's Efrafans to Aeneas's fight with Turnus's Latins. "By basing his story on one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Adams taps into a very old myth: the flight from disaster, the heroic refugee in search of a new home, a story that was already over a thousand years old when Vergil [sic] told it in 19 BC."[1]
Further Reading
Sequel - Tales from Watership Down
The Private Life of the Rabbit (1964), by British naturalist Ronald Lockley
Movie - Watership Down
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Reader Comments (6)
Looks like one of the entrants in the last-line contest cheated -- "When that command remains, no matter what happens to its officer, he has not failed" is actually the last line of L. Ron Hubbard's novel "The Final Blackout."
Very interesting, thanks Sean!
Awesome. I got read out twice in one podcast ;-)
Also, is it possible that the L. Ron Hubbard thing has occurred because of the jokes about Scientology. "Help! They're assaulting us with time-paradox".
Sorry to be off topic (you starteded!): cool to hear a sample of the Belkin Podcast gadget. Veronica: do you think you'll review it fully somewhere?
BTW: you've got some great energy going. I'm not a gamer, but love to listen to you guys. Ciao from Amsterdam!
My husband and I were listening to the podcast together because he wanted to hear how the GoStudio sounded (pretty good!) when we heard what I said quoted. Whee!
Looking forward to the next book!
I just found this podcast, and immediately skipped ahead to the Watership Down episodes, because it is one of my favourite books.
Something I just wanted to say was that after I first read it (I've read it quite a few times now) I noticed that Richard Adams seemed to have started his own mini-genre.
The first book I found is called The Cold Moons, by Aaron Clement. I read this book and every single page I said to myself "that happened in Watership. And that too! Hey, more from WD!". The Cold Moons (in my eye) is essentially Watership Down, but with badgers instead of bunnies. To The Letter. (that said, I haven't read it in a few years).
The next was a series called The Duncton Chronicles, by William Horwood. This is a six-book series (more like two trilogies set in the same world) that I like to think of as Lord of the Rings crossed with Watership Down, but with moles. I've read the Chronicles (the first trilogy), and have the second Trilogy (officially called The Book of Silence, I think) waiting to be read. The Duncton books are truly epic. It starts off (Duncton Stone is book 1) more like WD but the last two in the Chronicles series (Duncton Quest, Duncton Found) are huge, and detail what is basically a world-changing holy war that the moles are having, complete with a Christ-mole (Beechen).
I've enjoyed the Duncton books so far, but I definitely had to stop and shake my head a few times and say to myself 'wait a minute, moles are thinking this? This is a MOLE speaking?'. Talk about intricate world-building.
Just thought you might be interested!