![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Watership Down Part II: On Watership Down
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.
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.
no subject