Watership Down Part II: On Watership Down

[sholio]

Part I discussion here - feel free to join into older discussions or comment on other people's comments! Also, don't miss the Watership Down location post linking to pictures of the places in the book.


Okay, so there's a lot going on here! I think this part is less strongly cohesive than the other parts, which are each themed around some big event. This one is mostly just "settling in." Which is not to say it's boring in the slightest. It's just a lot of different stuff happening. I had forgotten that some of this (like Hazel being shot) happened this close to the beginning!

And there's a whole lot going on in this! We meet Kehaar and the hutch rabbits; Holly turns back up (along with Bluebell); the rabbits dig their new warren; Hazel gets shot and is presumed dead for a while.

It's really interesting to see the various factors of personality and hierarchy in the warren jostle against each other as their status quo continues to change with the addition of new rabbits. I feel like the characters are all more comfortable with each other now and their personalities are emerging more clearly. They tease each other more, and there are lots of great little character bits.

"Shut up," Bigwig said, before anyone had asked a question.

"I know you must all have been disappointed not to get rid of me at Nuthanger Farm the other day," [Hazel said]. "So I've decided to go a bit further next time."

Also, I just generally love Kehaar and it's great to get to the parts of the book that have him! I remember reading this as a kid and having absolutely no idea what kind of bird he is (I think I had pictured him as some kind of shorebird, perhaps a tern) even though it CLEARLY says he's a seagull about a dozen times. Here, have a Kehaar visual reference. The cultural/lifestyle differences between the rabbits and the other wild creatures - as per the behavior of their individual species - are so interesting! I also really enjoyed the entire hutch-rabbit escape sequence and their flight up the ditch; it's very vivid and exciting. And the construction of the new warren was also really interesting to me, including Holly's surprise at the Honeycomb. Strawberry's pleasure at being able to constructively contribute to the new warren is so touching.

This section involves the rabbits dealing more closely with humans than they have before. Humans are always a presence in their lives, but were more of a distant factor in their lives, a kind of force of nature like the weather, whereas in this section we start to have some up-close contact and see more of their interactions with human things, like encountering the hutch rabbits and farm cats.

There are also some really chilling parts in this sections, like the harrowing description of the warren being destroyed, and the account of Efrafra. Actually, this makes me think about how much of these books are about storytelling, with a lot of key plot information being conveyed in the form of stories-within-a-story, underlining how important storytelling is to the rabbits in a plot-relevant way.

And we end on a bit of a cliffhanger, as everyone sets out for Efrafra!

Questions:

1. What's your favorite scene in this section, if you have one?

2. What do you think of the book using phonetic accents for the other woodland creatures? Does it work, or do you think there's a better way to represent that the animals are barely mutually intelligible with each other? (Personally I like it and feel that it gets the point across that they have to work to understand each other. Also, Kehaar's dialogue never stops being fun.)

3. Any favorite new characters from this section?

4. Or favorite character bits that you particularly noticed?


As in the previous post, spoilers for future installments are fine in comments. You can set them off or obscure them using sites like rot13 if you want to, but you don't have to.

Comments

Spoilers for Part III in this comment

[sholio]

Putting this in a comment rather than the main body of the post to avoid spoilers, but there is a really nice bit of foreshadowing in the scene where Hazel rescues the mouse, as they're sitting in the burrow watching the kestrel flying around outside.

"I'd like to try standing up to some of these elil," said Bigwig, who had come up the run behind them. "We're afraid of too many. But a bird from the air would be awkward, especially if it came fast. It might get the better of even a big rabbit if it took him by surprise."

Besides that, another interesting thing with forward-looking implications that I noticed on this reread was the bit with the hutch rabbits being afraid of Bigwig when he lets them out of their cage, vs. the way that the Efrafra rabbits hero-worship him later on and refuse to take orders from anyone else. Obviously there are good reasons for this and it isn't arbitrary, but I found the contrast really interesting!

Re: Spoilers for Part III in this comment

[rachelmanija]

I noticed that too. There's also an eerie parallel between Bigwig saying "I'd like to try standing up to some of these elil" and General Woundwort saying, "Dogs aren't dangerous! Come back and fight!"

Re: Spoilers for Part III in this comment

[sholio]

There's also an eerie parallel between Bigwig saying "I'd like to try standing up to some of these elil" and General Woundwort saying, "Dogs aren't dangerous! Come back and fight!"

Oh yeah, that had also occurred to me, although I forgot about it by the time I wrote up the above. But it's kind of interesting to look at it from the perspective of Bigwig's "I'll fight you, I'll fight your cat, etc" attitude culminating in trying to fight the fox in the next part - and then he starts learning to back off, whereas Woundwort of course doesn't have an "off" button and thinks he can win against literally anything.

Re: Spoilers for Part III in this comment

[rachelmanija]

There's a major theme of "change or die" in the book. The Watership Down rabbits are willing to learn and change, but the other warren's we see - Sandleford, Cowslip's, and Efrafa - are stuck in a state of doubling down on the wrong thing to do.

Incidentally, what do you think it means that only Cowslip's warren doesn't have a name?

Re: Spoilers for Part III in this comment

[sholio]

Incidentally, what do you think it means that only Cowslip's warren doesn't have a name?

You know, I wondered about that, but it hadn't occurred to me that it might be thematically significant. I had never noticed that it doesn't seem to have a name until trying to write about it and realizing that we always have to call it "Cowslip's warren" or something similar because it doesn't seem to have a name.

I guess that might go along with those rabbits not having a Chief Rabbit or any particular sense of community, even to the point where they don't think of themselves as a unified people at all.

EDIT: On the "change or die" theme, there are also the hutch rabbits! Perhaps quite literally, in the scene where some of them are too stunned by their change of circumstances to do anything except sit there as easy prey for cats and other predators.

Re: Spoilers for Part III in this comment

[rachelmanija]

Yes, I think that must be it. They have culture but no caring, community, or unity.

[rachelmanija]

I really like this section though it's not quite as tightly structured. I'd also forgotten that Hazel getting shot happens so early; I think I was conflating it with another incident with Hazel and the farm.

I love Kehaar and Bigwig's bond with him. It's delightful and hilarious. The rabbits are so grossed out by his rotting kipper!

I usually dislike accents in written narration but these work for me because they're not identifiable as real-life human accents. You can see some inspiration sometimes but Kehaar basically sounds like Kehaar. It gets across the sense of how a seagull sounds to a rabbit.

I loved seeing Fiver's triumph in leading the rabbits to Watershed Down, and that Hawkbit, the rabbit who's mostly notable for being not too sharp and a bit irritating, finds the tunnels that most likely save some lives.

[sholio]

I'd also forgotten that Hazel getting shot happens so early; I think I was conflating it with another incident with Hazel and the farm.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I was mixing it up with the sequence with the little girl and the cat. I had forgotten they were separate incidents.

I love Kehaar and Bigwig's bond with him. It's delightful and hilarious.

I think so too! All the Kehaar scenes are so fun, and it's kind of neat that out of all of them, Bigwig is the one who makes friends with him in particular.

I usually dislike accents in written narration but these work for me because they're not identifiable as real-life human accents. You can see some inspiration sometimes but Kehaar basically sounds like Kehaar. It gets across the sense of how a seagull sounds to a rabbit.

Same - although I don't always hate it, but it has to be well done and there for a good reason, and I think this qualifies as one of those times. It's not a phonetic depiction of an exact accent but rather, a general impression of the difficulty of the various animals understanding each other. And I think it works really well for that.

I do really love how most of the different rabbits get their chance to do something cool or helpful or interesting. I don't think everyone does (IIRC, Acorn and Speedwell, for example, remain background rabbits to the end) but most of them get an occasional opportunity to shine and most of them stand out as individual personalities, which is really an accomplishment with a cast this big.

[rachelmanija]

It's such a good handling of a very large cast. And we haven't even met some of the most memorable characters yet!

[sovay]

It's not a phonetic depiction of an exact accent but rather, a general impression of the difficulty of the various animals understanding each other.

Kehaar's accent always looked like eye dialect Scandinavian to me—Eugene O'Neill uses similar phonetics for the character of Olson in the Glencairn plays, for example, right down to p for b, v for w, d for th. His repeated agreement of "Ya, ya" helps with that impression, too.

(I could have sworn I'd left this comment last month, but apparently not.)

[sholio]

Yeah, they aren't really real-world accents but they also kind of are; the way they read to me is that Kehaar is loosely based on Scandinavian/Norwegian and the mice on Italian (as far as phonetically rendered, broad accents go). At the same time, he also uses extremely broad accents for the rural English human folk as well, which I think is one reason why it doesn't bother me.

[sovay]

At the same time, he also uses extremely broad accents for the rural English human folk as well, which I think is one reason why it doesn't bother me.

Plus the use of all the invented Lapine: the rabbits are not an unmarked dialect themselves.

[viridian5]

I appreciate the way Hazel is willing to incorporate the positive things from the places they visit instead of dismissing it with the bad. I loved the text noting that the hutch rabbits speak Lapine with either an accent or a somewhat different dialect.

Unfortunately, the phonetic accent Kahaar has makes him sound to me (when I'm reading in my head) as a mix between a Muppet, which is fine, and Jar Jar Binks, which is less fine.

[sholio]

I appreciate the way Hazel is willing to incorporate the positive things from the places they visit instead of dismissing it with the bad.

Yes, I liked that too! I also noticed a lot more of the aspect of Hazel's leadership style that was discussed in the comments to the last post, where he praises and persuades rather than dominating the other rabbits in the warren.

re: the accents - HAHAHA and also OH NO. I can see how that would be offputting!

[rachelmanija]

Hahahaha.

I feel like if anyone sounds like Jar Jar Binks, it's the mouse.

[viridian5]

The mouse does too, but the reader spends a lot more time with Kehaar.

[selenak]

Accents: you know, I've never read this book in English. The German translation solves this by giving Kehaar and to a greater degree the other animals a sort of pigdin German (i.e. bad grammar, making it sound like someone who speaks the language only not very well, just enough to communicate). The one exception, btw, is the cat whose one spoken sentence much, much later is perfectly phrased.

Holly and Bluebell remind me very much of a pair of highly traumatized WWI soldiers, which may or may not have been the association Adams was going for. Or Frodo and Sam in Mordor. Bluebell keeping him going with stupid jokes is, as harrowing as Holly's account of the destruction of Sandleford is, definitely one of my favourite scenes.

Hazel getting shot: what I love about this entire episode is that Adams shows Hazel as flawed here - his going back to the farm is a wrong decision mostly based on ego and a bit of hubris, not wanting to be outdone by Holly & Co. coming back from Efrafra with does. Hazel has been making the right decisions up to this point, except for trusting Cowslip & Co., and that had been an understandable mistake. But he's still young and things generally have been going well for them, so it feels psychologically plausible he's slip up like that and this point of his personal development. It also makes him and his good decisions even more real - he isn't a good leader by default, he has to work for it. His getting shot and nearly dying therefore isn't something that happens out of the blue, it's partly Hazel's own responsibility. And he learns from it. (He also is aware that if things in Efrafa had gone differently, he'd look far, far worse in everyone's eyes.)

Another thing: Hazel and Fiver's fraternal relationship was the first one we readers got introduced to, and the fallout from the farm trip is basically the last time the book showcases it, due to all the other things happening in the rest of the novel. Fiver in general disappears into the background after this, I think. This isn't a complaint, just an observation.

[sholio]

I didn't even think of the translation issue when I wrote the above; thank you for pointing that out! Also, that's really interesting to know.

Hazel getting shot: what I love about this entire episode is that Adams shows Hazel as flawed here - his going back to the farm is a wrong decision mostly based on ego and a bit of hubris, not wanting to be outdone by Holly & Co. coming back from Efrafra with does.

Yes!! I really loved that too. Hazel isn't perfect, and the best part is that his ego-induced near-disaster doesn't come out of nowhere; it's mentioned early on that he's unusually confident and self-assured for a young outskirter, which are the same traits that enabled him to lead a group out into the wilderness and stand up against Bigwig's attempts to take charge. But now we get the flip side of that, when he's overly confident in a situation where he shouldn't be. And as you say, he does learn from it! It makes him feel like a believable character rather than a paragon.

Hazel and Fiver's fraternal relationship was the first one we readers got introduced to, and the fallout from the farm trip is basically the last time the book showcases it, due to all the other things happening in the rest of the novel. Fiver in general disappears into the background after this, I think.

Oh, that's really interesting; I hadn't noticed that, but you're right. Fiver still has a few things to do yet (his vision that gives Hazel the idea for how to save the warren later) but his relationship with Hazel started out very central and I don't think we really see it again after this, at least in a close one-on-one kind of way. The ensemble becomes more central from here, I think, especially Bigwig's various relationships.

I also hadn't noticed that about the traumatized-soldier resemblance, but you're right! It's especially interesting because I do think, considering it, that the vibe is more WWI than WWII, even though the latter would have been Adams' own experience.

[selenak]

I didn't even think of the translation issue when I wrote the above; thank you for pointing that out! Also, that's really interesting to know.

Whenever English books use phonetic spelling or dialect, a translator worth their salt has to decide how important this is to plot and characterisation, and try to come up with some equivalent. For example, something like Shaw's Pygmalion (and afterwards "My Fair Lady") would make no sense if Eliza and her father don't speak distinctly different from Higgins & Co., and in a way that codes them as lower in the class hierarchy. So what both the original translator, Siegfried Trebitsch, and subsequent translators did was to let them speak in Berlin street dialect. Otoh, the original translators of "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn" ignored the problem altogether; Huck speaks the same kind of German Tom does. To pick a more modern example, with the Harry Potter novels, I've read them in English and only once glanced in a German translation, and it seems the translators try to come up with equivalents to the puns in the names etc., but ignore whenever JKR has someone speak phonetically, like, say, Fleur.

ETA: also: re: Hazel, that was one of the many reasons why I was mad about the most recent film/tv version. Book!Hazel is good but also not perfect; we see both his strengths and in the case with the farm his capacity for error. The recent tv series not only changed his motivations (now it's romantic love for Clover!) but felt it had to beef him up by involving him in the action parts of the finale (now Hazel, who after being shot has a lame left, for God's sake, takes part in the get-the-dog-expedition). And they ruin Bigwig's biggest scene by letting Hazel advise him to say that in advance. It's just textbook wrong, and you can tell whoever was responsbile for the scripts never understood what made Hazel a great character in the book to begin with.

[rachelmanija]

Oh, that's so interesting about reading the book in German. In English, the cat also speaks in perfect and even slightly formal English.

Holly and Bluebell also make me think of WWI soldiers. Adams' own experience was of WWII, and in fact some of the rabbits are directly based on men he knew in the RAF. But the trauma of utter destruction and mass death for literally no reason that the rabbits can comprehend does feel more like WWI to me.

[selenak]

Thinking about it further, it may also be that the association first came to me because of the poisonous gas, and the way it was first used in WWI.

Back to languages: it occurs to me that in the lapine mythology, i.e. the El-hrair-rha stories, the non-rabbit animals who get to talk (the hedgehog, the dog etc.) do so in "normal" speech in the German translation - do they talk phonetically in English? If not, I'd see it as the difference between myths/folklore and reality.

[sholio]

Oh, you're right - their speech in the myths is standard English from what I can recall, just like the rabbits'. And that makes sense, in the same way that animals can talk in a lot of human folklore but not real life.

[rachelmanija]

In the myths all the animals talk completely normally, ie, the same way. I never registered that before until you mentioned it, but yeah, it seems like part of how in mythical times, things were different.

[lunabee34]

I love Kehaar. What a great character. And I am fine with the way his dialogue is written for the reasons you and other commenters have suggested; I do not like phonetically rendered human dialogue but the animals are different.

[sholio]

Kehaar is so fantastic! He's really been delighting me on the reread.

[katherine]

With much re-reading and peering at the map, I wonder that none of them considered going back to Cowslip's warren and trying to get does from there, as further away but likely much less trouble than Efrafa.

[sholio]

Oh, that's a good question! There's a bit somewhere in here where someone remarks that they think everyone back at Cowslip's warren is dead - which seemed like kind of a leap to me, because the whole reason why Cowslip's warren was like that was because the humans took some rabbits but left the rest alive! But they appear to have assumed there was nothing worth going back for. It's true that it seems to be completely off the scope of everyone's thoughts as even so much as a possibility.

[rachelmanija]

I forget who said it, but IIRC it wasn't that they were all dead already, but that the warren might literally cave in within their lifetimes. (Fiver does say that Silverweed died.) It's like they think it's overdue for collapsing under the weight of its own unnatural wrongness.

[rachelmanija]

You know, that's the first time that ever occurred to me! I think you're right that they never considered it either. It feels like a cursed and haunted place that they wouldn't want to go back to. Also, based on poor Pimpernel's fate, they'd be attacked immediately if they showed up again.

Strawberry left of his own free will but nobody else did, and any of them could have at any time. It seems like anyone still there is choosing to be there, unlike Efrafa where they're actively being prevented from leaving.

[selenak]

*nods* And that includes the does, who have a will of their own, after all. It's not like Hazel & Co. could drag them away if they didn't want to go. I.e. "our" rabbits had been given no indication these does would be in any way interested.

[sheron]

I might be misremembering but I feel like they offered all of them a chance to go with them when they were leaving, and nobody took them up on it. Given what they know about how that group set them up to die (by not warning about the traps) I also feel like they couldn't trust them and/or respect them every again.

[katherine]

No, Hazel and the others left directly from the snare. I can definitely see not trusting (it's surprising they took even Strawberry along).

[sheron]

I've read to the end of this part, stopping just before the next because what I thought was just vague "hmm" feelings are turning into "am I really going to read a lot of pages about acquiring females now?" Which I realize is silly because this is rabbits and the point of the book is completely unrelated, and on top of that they are 'inviting' the does to join them rather than forcing them to be there but.. Something about Efrafra storline has skeeved me out sufficiently last night that I ended up stopping there.

That said, I'm really fond of these characters (rabbits!) and I do really want to find out what they will get up to next. With that in mind, some of my answers...

1. What's your favorite scene in this section, if you have one?

Definitely Hazel getting shot, lying there half dead, then Fiver finding him and staying with him in the ditch somewhere and Bigwig running off to be with them too. I mean. This is basically every fanfic I like, just in rabbit form, so.

2. What do you think of the book using phonetic accents for the other woodland creatures?

I have enjoyed it and I do not often say that about accents in books. Normally I hate it with a passion of ten thousand stars, but I think something about the way the author works language into this book becomes part of the world building. It's not humans who are parsing these different dialects, it's rabbits and that makes it a little bit more interesting from the 'how do they parse it?' perspective. Also I think the way that the dialects are explained to give the reader a hand (e.g. the bird says 'mudders' and Hazel replies 'mothers') makes it easier.
I don't like that there's no translation for some of the epigraphs at the start of each chapter when they're in another language. (At least not in my copy. I want to know what it says!)

3. Any favorite new characters from this section?

I like Clover. I'm kind of hoping the ladies get something to do, but not holding my breath.

4. Or favorite character bits that you particularly noticed?

How clever Hazel actually is. He's so clever! He's not intelligent like Blackberry, or insightful like Fiver, or witty like the jokester rabbits. But his EQ about how to get others to do things is high and he's the one who sees the big picture, a real Chief Rabbit. I like how protective he is of the group, too. At the same time his blind spots are non trivial and it's fun to watch him sort of be surprised by the loyalty or bravery of the other rabbits (e.g. Bigwig) on occasion.

[sholio]

I do totally get the weird feelings about the doe storyline. I mean, to me it's basically filed under "rabbit morality" but I know some people bounce of it, and that's completely valid.

Definitely Hazel getting shot, lying there half dead, then Fiver finding him and staying with him in the ditch somewhere and Bigwig running off to be with them too. I mean. This is basically every fanfic I like, just in rabbit form, so.

"Every fanfic I like, just in rabbit form" - the Watership Down story. :D (Seriously, I had forgotten how much h/c there actually is in this series. With tons of bonus cuddling and licking, since they're so tactile.)

How clever Hazel actually is. He's so clever! He's not intelligent like Blackberry, or insightful like Fiver, or witty like the jokester rabbits. But his EQ about how to get others to do things is high and he's the one who sees the big picture, a real Chief Rabbit. I like how protective he is of the group, too.

Yeah, I think this is another thing I'm noticing a lot more on this reread. Hazel is a really good leader, and it's really neat how often you actually see that, e.g. Hazel getting good results by praising and cajoling the others rather than throwing his weight around. Something that is especially shown a lot in this book is Hazel praising others when they've done well, particularly as a way of heading off a potential fight, which is a really neat thing to see demonstrated this extensively on-page.

[sheron]

Yes, I'm glad I gave the rest of it a chance because that was probably the most heavy handed part. Not that the book couldn't have been improved by more doe action (lol) but as it is, it didn't overly bother me once the third part started and everyone had something to do.

I did really enjoy the h/c, which my mind immediately started applying to various other fandoms :D

It was a really enjoyable read. I'm also really surprised by how "sticky" it is, because I don't often think about books quite as vividly after reading them, but this definitely left me with a bunch of friendshippy feelings that are very stark :)

[oracne]

Somehow I missed when this post first went up, sorry for the lateness.

When Holly and Bluebell first show up, I was reminded irresistibly of Lear and The Fool. Holly isn't very Lear-like, except in his mental state, but Bluebell is very, very Fool-like. I, too, was reminded of traumatized soldiers and their coping mechanisms.