Watership Down, spoiler post

[paperlibrarian]

NOTE: This is the last discussion post Book Retorts is going to have on LiveJournal. If you would like to continue with the book club, know that we're recreating it on Facebook and you are welcome to join us. It will be a closed group, but you can ask for an invite from from me, Zee, or anyone who already has access. I *think* I added everyone I

Comments

[zinnea]

He's a good storyteller but a bad writer,

Accurate. But I love this book so much. I know that it's really meant to be an allusion to human society and culture and the impact of technology and "progress" on the environment (usually this is bad) and all of that but for me this book will always be special because at ten years old I'd heard of things like symbolism and allusion but it was reading Watership Down that made me understand that sometimes the best way to tell a story is indirectly.

I thought that most of the rabbit characters were pretty well drawn although a few of them really did seem to exist just to represent a specific thing. It didn't really bother me, though. I think Hazel's doubts were pretty understandable and I actually enjoy his struggles. Maybe it's just because I'm the sort of person who challenges myself on what I believe all the time and so I go through that whole "I believe, no, wait, I don't, no, wait I do" mindset a lot.

I'm pretty sure Adams was very heavily influenced by Tolkien although I've never done the research to prove it. It's just his age and all...he'd have had to have been. There's a LOT of fantastic (in the "fantasy" sense, lols, not necessarily the "slang term for wonderful" sense) work from the 60s/70s that totally fans out on Tolkein to the point that no one could just write a story without creating this huge complex history and filling up all the nooks and crannies with evidence of their own artistry, which is why soooooooooooooooo much SF&F of the day is SO hard to read anymore. I would also have preferred if Adams had stuck to the story (I actually think Watership Down might have been better served if he wrote each significant piece of the plot as a semi-stand alone short story and then linked them together with the rabbits on their journey framing device.) but, eh, I like the story enough to forgive him his indulgences.

It does move slowly but I suppose I've read it so many times now that I can just skip over the parts that drag and so it doesn't bother me quite as much.

I hated the sequel book, though. I'd been waiting for it my whole life and then I finally got it and was all. um. ok.

[paperlibrarian]

I don't think his intent was as direct as that, though. He specifically says in the introduction of the copy I have that the story was made up in his head during a car ride. While he may have said, "Okay, how I can discuss the badness of human progress more as I put this to paper?", the introduction also does not suggest that.

Why did you hate the sequel?

[zinnea]

Very few writers really ever do sit down with the intent to write about the human condition, but it happens anyway.

The stories in the sequel feel really half-assed to me, to be honest, like, "Okay, FINE, you want a sequel? HERE'S YOUR STINKING SEQUEL LEAVE ME ALONE." I don't think that was his actual intent, but it's how the stories read to me. A couple of them are okay but they're never really immersive enough to bring me into their world.

His book Plague Dogs is one I would never recommend to anyone, not because it's badly written but because it's just so damn depressing. But my friend reminded me the other day that he wrote Girl in a Swing and I think I'm going to reread that because I don't remember a thing about it but I do remember that i liked it.