Waterhsip Down

TimmyofOz said:
One of the points I was trying to make about the character relationship in Watership Down being male and military is that of the lack of male-female relationships or romantic. Now this may be a British thing like inkspot said, but we see it in Lewis' work also. Lewis even keeps Mark and Jane (who are married)apart for the entire book of That Hideous Strength so he won't have to deal with male-female relationship. Lewis deals with it only by theory in THS.
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Could that be in part because Lewis had never really had personal experience with a romantic relationship himself until he met Joy Gresham? That Hideous Strength was written in 1945, well before his marriage; however he does deal with romantic relationships in detail (and grieving them) in A Grief Observed.
 
Greensawmill said:
Could that be in part because Lewis had never really had personal experience with a romantic relationship himself until he met Joy Gresham? That Hideous Strength was written in 1945, well before his marriage; however he does deal with romantic relationships in detail (and grieving them) in A Grief Observed.
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But Richard Adams is married and has kids and he doesn't deal with male-female relationship either. I was just comparing the book not analyzing the authors. If you like Lewis' fiction you will see similarities with Adam's.
 
watership

well, i remember readin it when i was alot younger, for some reason, but i cant quite recall the story etc..
i remember the film being very good, but quite disturbing and sad and very scary.. watched it at christmas actually, and it still made me cry as much as it did when i was seven :)
all in all a good book and film, i might reread it again actually, after i finish the lotr series.. you've inspired me to read wd again :)
 
welcome, mmmmFrodo, I didn't see you post before! :)

WD is a great read; I saw the film years ago and remember thinking they did notdevelop the characters nearly as well as the book did; by looks, you could hardly tell them apart. And doesn't it end awkwardly? Almost as if they planned to make a second film to finish the story?

Timmy, I always assumed there was no "romance" in WD because that kind of thing is unknown in rabbits? Despite their having language and mythology, the rabbits in WD act and behave very much like rabbits: they run when they're scared, they quickly forget the dead, they focus on food ... so looking for love just doesn't come up until they're actually confronted with the two lady hutch rabbits who come in season, just as rabbits would naturally do ... not quite the same explanation can be applied to humans.

Greensawmill, I love that scene in WD, too, especially because for a moment WW has the chance to prove himself a visionary, to listen to Hazel and accept the commonsense proposal, but then he keeps himself from hearing and convinces himself brute force will carry the day; it's so tragic. A companion scene to that, in my mind, is BigWig in the tunnel telling WW, "My chief rabbit told me to block the way, and I'll stay here until he says not to" or some such -- and suddenly WW realizes the Chief Rabbit is not BigWig himself, and assumes it is someone bigger and stronger! But in fact, it's just someone wiser. :)
 
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inkspot said:
Greensawmill, I love that scene in WD, too, especially because for a moment WW has the chance to prove himself a visionary, to listen to Hazel and accept the commonsense proposal, but then he keeps himself from hearing and convinces himself brute force will carry the day; it's so tragic. A companion scene to that, in my mind, is BigWig in the tunnel telling WW, "My chief rabbit told me to block the way, and I'll stay here until he says not to" or some such -- and suddenly WW realizes the Chief Rabbit is not BigWig himself, and assumes it is someone bigger and stronger! But in fact, it's just someone wiser. :)
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You're right, that scene with Bigwig actually made me choke up the last time I read WD. Excellent scene, perhaps the story's emotional climax.
 
Greensawmill said:
You're right, that scene with Bigwig actually made me choke up the last time I read WD. Excellent scene, perhaps the story's emotional climax.
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Awww, so glad you like it! Those are two of my favorite scenes, except the former is so tragic for WW, for everyone.
 
After recently going through the book, I find that movie tried to put in too much action from the book but too little development. One of the flaws in the movie is that a rabbit is killed in the trek from the old warren to Watership Down, while in the book what clinchs Hanzels authority is that he gets all of the rabbits that left the old warren safely to the Down.
 
I finished it back on Saturday, it was a really great book. Hazel is a great character, I liked Blackberry, and Bigwig was awesome :D

I love the whole set up (kind of reminds me of Mewsie's stories :D), it makes rabbit's lives seem so exciting, and it was all around a good book.
 
A great book. I read it as a kid and I just couldn't put it down. I also saw the film a few years later and liked it. I haven't read it recently but I'm sure I'd get choked up if I did.
 
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