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Watership Down Part I: The Journey
And here we go with the Watership Down reread! Feel free to link to it if you like. Posts will be roughly once a week, give or take a bit depending on my free time, one post per section and then, after that, perhaps some additional posts for the extra stories and adaptations.
Spoiler policy: I will be avoiding spoilers for future chapters in the main body of the post, but spoilers are fine in the comments. Therefore, if you're reading for the first time, the posts will be fine to read, but the comments are read-at-your-own-risk. (Let me know if you feel this should change.)
Also please feel free to talk among yourselves in the comments if someone else raises a point or asks a question you want to comment on. If you have your own discussion questions, things that were unclear, or anything else you want to ask about, please bring it up!
So first of all, I'm really enjoying the reread! It's been so long since I read the book that, while I remember some scenes with incredible vividness (the river crossing, Fiver's vision of a field of blood, the snare), as well as the overall ambiance, I'm rediscovering a lot of the specific details as I read.
One thing I remember from every time I've read this book is how intensely I visualize everything. I love all the lush descriptions of sunsets and meadows and exactly what plants would be growing or blooming at any given time of year -- including the darker parts, a hedgehog run over on the road or a crow trying to peck a rabbit's eyes out.
I'm fascinated to notice, this time around, how the book takes place on a rabbit timescale, in both time and space. In addition to the rich and detailed nature descriptions, I think this micro-focus on events happening at rabbit-speed is another part of what makes the book feel so immersive, drawing you into the rabbits' world. The time scale feels stretched, compared to how humans experience time. Two days feels like a really long time; a mile feels like forever. But these are small creatures who live a whole lifetime in just a couple of years. At the start of the book, Hazel and Fiver are only about six months old. No wonder a whole multi-part epic journey can take place from moonset to sunrise.
I didn't remember Hazel being as big and assertive as he is, especially early on. Fiver thinks he'll get into the Owsla someday, which suggests that Hazel is not a small rabbit! I also had forgotten that Bigwig is as smart as he is. I had remembered it more of a Hazel = brains, Bigwig = brawn kind of dynamic, but in fact Hazel can fight pretty well, and Bigwig is actually the only one besides Blackberry and Fiver who understands what's happening with the floating raft, as well as having a much greater working knowledge of the outside world, from roads to snares, than the others do. He also looks out for the smaller rabbits, not to the extent Hazel does, but definitely to an extent, noticing that they need to stop because they're tired and protecting Pipkin from the crow.
Also, the snare scene is still wonderful. As well as just being generally excellent on its own (and highly relevant to my h/c-loving interests; it's no surprise this is one of the scenes I've remembered most vividly all my life), I love that it brings them together and helps forge them into a cohesive group, after being scattered and fighting and constantly struggling over leadership in the chapters leading up to this one. There's a very cohesive structure to this section; it doesn't resolve the question of where they end up yet, but it's built around their bonding as a group in a very pleasing way.
Cowslip's warren - you know, reading the book analytically as well as for pleasure, I'm actually not really sure how we're meant to take that section. Is it simply an obstacle for Hazel's group to overcome? Are they meant to represent corruption and collaboration, with their more humanlike aspects as objectively horrific as Hazel's group find them? Or are they what happens when rabbits don't have to spend all their time trying to survive and find themselves with free time to develop concepts like Art? Hazel's group views them with suspicion, fear, and horror, but are we meant to? Discuss!
Incidentally, I had completely missed that Nildro-hain died on every previous reread, and would have missed it this time if it wasn't briefly mentioned later on. (I don't think that's a spoiler; I think we're meant to infer it here. It was just a little too subtle for me.)
Questions:
1. Do you have a particularly favorite bit of nature description or other favorite bit from this section? Favorite scene or chapter?
2. Who are your favorite rabbit(s), if you have any? (Or is it someone who hasn't showed up in the book yet?)
3. Thoughts on Cowslip's warren, thematically or otherwise?
4. Do you agree about the snare scene as a bonding element to close out the section? Come talk to me about the snare scene! Presumed dead! Teamwork! Rabbit first aid!
5. How do you feel about Fiver's powers, and the other slight elements of magical realism, in an otherwise basically realistic book? I mean, besides the talking rabbits. Do the fantasy touches work for you?
And anything else you want to talk about!
Spoiler policy: I will be avoiding spoilers for future chapters in the main body of the post, but spoilers are fine in the comments. Therefore, if you're reading for the first time, the posts will be fine to read, but the comments are read-at-your-own-risk. (Let me know if you feel this should change.)
Also please feel free to talk among yourselves in the comments if someone else raises a point or asks a question you want to comment on. If you have your own discussion questions, things that were unclear, or anything else you want to ask about, please bring it up!
So first of all, I'm really enjoying the reread! It's been so long since I read the book that, while I remember some scenes with incredible vividness (the river crossing, Fiver's vision of a field of blood, the snare), as well as the overall ambiance, I'm rediscovering a lot of the specific details as I read.
One thing I remember from every time I've read this book is how intensely I visualize everything. I love all the lush descriptions of sunsets and meadows and exactly what plants would be growing or blooming at any given time of year -- including the darker parts, a hedgehog run over on the road or a crow trying to peck a rabbit's eyes out.
I'm fascinated to notice, this time around, how the book takes place on a rabbit timescale, in both time and space. In addition to the rich and detailed nature descriptions, I think this micro-focus on events happening at rabbit-speed is another part of what makes the book feel so immersive, drawing you into the rabbits' world. The time scale feels stretched, compared to how humans experience time. Two days feels like a really long time; a mile feels like forever. But these are small creatures who live a whole lifetime in just a couple of years. At the start of the book, Hazel and Fiver are only about six months old. No wonder a whole multi-part epic journey can take place from moonset to sunrise.
I didn't remember Hazel being as big and assertive as he is, especially early on. Fiver thinks he'll get into the Owsla someday, which suggests that Hazel is not a small rabbit! I also had forgotten that Bigwig is as smart as he is. I had remembered it more of a Hazel = brains, Bigwig = brawn kind of dynamic, but in fact Hazel can fight pretty well, and Bigwig is actually the only one besides Blackberry and Fiver who understands what's happening with the floating raft, as well as having a much greater working knowledge of the outside world, from roads to snares, than the others do. He also looks out for the smaller rabbits, not to the extent Hazel does, but definitely to an extent, noticing that they need to stop because they're tired and protecting Pipkin from the crow.
Also, the snare scene is still wonderful. As well as just being generally excellent on its own (and highly relevant to my h/c-loving interests; it's no surprise this is one of the scenes I've remembered most vividly all my life), I love that it brings them together and helps forge them into a cohesive group, after being scattered and fighting and constantly struggling over leadership in the chapters leading up to this one. There's a very cohesive structure to this section; it doesn't resolve the question of where they end up yet, but it's built around their bonding as a group in a very pleasing way.
Cowslip's warren - you know, reading the book analytically as well as for pleasure, I'm actually not really sure how we're meant to take that section. Is it simply an obstacle for Hazel's group to overcome? Are they meant to represent corruption and collaboration, with their more humanlike aspects as objectively horrific as Hazel's group find them? Or are they what happens when rabbits don't have to spend all their time trying to survive and find themselves with free time to develop concepts like Art? Hazel's group views them with suspicion, fear, and horror, but are we meant to? Discuss!
Incidentally, I had completely missed that Nildro-hain died on every previous reread, and would have missed it this time if it wasn't briefly mentioned later on. (I don't think that's a spoiler; I think we're meant to infer it here. It was just a little too subtle for me.)
Questions:
1. Do you have a particularly favorite bit of nature description or other favorite bit from this section? Favorite scene or chapter?
2. Who are your favorite rabbit(s), if you have any? (Or is it someone who hasn't showed up in the book yet?)
3. Thoughts on Cowslip's warren, thematically or otherwise?
4. Do you agree about the snare scene as a bonding element to close out the section? Come talk to me about the snare scene! Presumed dead! Teamwork! Rabbit first aid!
5. How do you feel about Fiver's powers, and the other slight elements of magical realism, in an otherwise basically realistic book? I mean, besides the talking rabbits. Do the fantasy touches work for you?
And anything else you want to talk about!