“Not nearly the treat the BOOK is”
embleer Frith.
Watership Down is my all time favorite novel. Just a brilliantly realized work of fantasy, even better than LOTR in my opinion. I agree with the OP that the ending is so bittersweet it’s almost confusing. It makes you feel mournful and elated at the same time (and some of the sadness comes simply from the fact that you know the story is over and you will be leaving these characters forever).
The movie doesn’t really hold a candle. It changes too much, collapses too much and dispenses with too much of the mythology that gives the book so much resonance (I’ve always found the story of El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inle to be almost unreasonably moving for a story about rabbits).
The movie also kind of rushes through the basics of the story and the characters aren’t drawn with the same amount of depth as in the in the book.
I’ve read (or tried to read) some of Richard Adams books and for the most part haven’t really been able to get into them. I did enjoy Traveller but nowhere near to the same degree as WD. I also enjoyed the book of short stories but they’re really just kind of light and fluffy. I don’t think there will ever be another Watership Down.
Wow. I read Watership back in college and I liked it, but I guess it didn’t make that much of a permanent impression. Hearing the praise in this thread makes me want to read it again!
In my opinion, The Plague Dogs was good, but not nearly as good as Watership Down. It’s too corrupted by humans, I think: To the rabbits, humans were basically just an incidental part of the background, but any story about dogs must inherently be a story about humans, as well, which takes away some of the fantasy, I think.
I love this book. I first read it in fourth grade (or, rather, the teacher began reading it to the class, but I liked the beginning so much, I then went and finished it long before we did in class!) I have since reread it many more times, coming second on my list of most-reads after Le Petit Prince.
I once leant the book to my sister, and she kept it for the majority of a school year, and when she finally cleaned out her locker and gave it back to me, both covers (paperback) had been torn off, along with some of the front pages, but the whole story was still complete. It is still the only copy I have. I was so mad at her for destroying my favourite book, I actually cried (at that point, I hadn’t yet read Prince.)
I’ve always wanted to go to England and visit Watership Down. That website was really cool!
I should read the book again…!
One of my favorite books! The movie was okay; I saw the movie before I read the book, lo these many years ago, and was entranced by the tale of the creation of the rabbits: “If they catch you, they will kill you. But first, they must catch you.” Plus it was possibly the first time I saw swearing in a cartoon (Kehaar: “Piss off!”).
I read it as an adult; I don’t know what caused me to skip it as a kid, I guess I thought a book about bunnies would be just too twee for my tastes. :smack: Geez, was I a dork. It’s a mythological epic in 5 miles! I wish I’d read it before my final paper was due in World Mythologies class; that could have been one heck of a report.
Tales From Watership Down is pretty decent; it fills in a lot of the mythology of the bunnies, and adds a little more to what happened after the defeat of General Woundwort. But it’s not the great epic story that the original is.
I didn’t like the movie at all. Saw it with my sister while we were kids and got the book as a gift not long afterwards. Took me years to be willing to read the book and have yet to be able to convince my sister that the book is not the same. (She refuses to read it, the movie depressed her so).
Shame, since the book is really very good.
I would put Heavenly Horse from the Outermost West and Piper at the Gate right up there at the top of the list. My list, anyway. It’s the Watership Down of horses written for kids but it’s really of a more adult bent, I think. It has an extensive mythology of horses which isn’t as detailed as Watership Down but is still just as fascinating. Unfortunately, Heavenly Horse is out of print but I’ve seen some copies over on eBay.
Perhaps I should include a link while I’m at it? :smack:
I got chills just remembering that scene - my favorite from the book! Thanks.
I need to give a shout-out to The Sausage Creature to return my copies of Watership Down and the sequel (nowhere near as good), if she’s done reading them. I could re-read WD again sometime soon.
My “Man of the 50’s father”, an engineer, of all people, recommended Watership Down to me, and I loved it. (Thanks, Dad!)
I don’t think any movie version could capture the essence of the book. I only vaguely remember the movie at this point, so it must not have made much of an impression.
I liked The Plague Dogs as well, especially when Adams gets so full of emotion that he starts writing directly in rhyming prose. But it’s not Watership Down/
My first wife used to call me El-hraka-rah. 
I thought Shardik was OK, although not the equal of WD. That said I recall thinking back in the day, that WD does indulgence the myth and mystic a bit, faltering when it moves from the precarious and the innovative that really drive the narrative.
The movie and music I also thought were worth seeing, after the reading. It added a bit of texture. Whereas the LOTR film trilogy surpasses the books and stands alone for that.
The movie’s okay, it just suffers from all the problems of adapting a 500-page novel to a 90-minute film. It’s also quite violent. Much of what made the novel so endearing (the mythology, etc.) doesn’t translate to film, period.
However, it’s nowhere near as dismal as the animated TV series, which aired in the UK, and chopped into a trio of movies for DVD release. Now that’s a true bowdlerization, with cute cartoon bunny voices, and many “politically correct” revisions to the story…for example, Blackberry’s changed into a doe! :eek:
I too was disappointed by Tales of Watership Down. Inevitably so, I suppose.
The symbolism of the stories of El-ahrairah in the sequel were too blatantly ripoffs of existing mythico-religious symbolism. Nothing really happened that was worth the read, and… I kinda wish I hadn’t read it — naw, I kinda wish he hadn’t written it. That’s not a glowing recommendation.
But what could possibly have lived up to the original?
Thanks everyone. I think I’ll just bask in the happy afterglow of what was a very unexpected delight. I’m off for a week to the (really remote) countryside, and when I see the rabbits there, I will have a new appreciation of just how tough a life they have. Which may well have been one of Richard Adams intentions.
Ack! I’ve seen a book-ization of some of these and I’d almost managed to purge my brain of the experience until you mentioned it. Looks like they managed to do for Richard Adams what Disney’s take on The Jungle Book did for Kipling.
::barf::
If you’re going to use language like that you can go and silflay hraka, dude.
Funny you should mention that. I recently re-read WD (for about the eighth time in my life) and was inspired to poke around the net for more information on the book. No words can express my outrage when I learned about that TV version, with Blackberry being changed into a doe. I mean, HELLO? The very reason the Watership rabbits had to raid Efrafa was because they had no does with them! They undermined the very reason for the plot of the last half of the book, for cryin’ out loud! Stupid, stupid, stupid.
(And I know, they had the hutch does, after the raid on Nuthanger Farm, but the Watership rabbits weren’t sure the farm rabbits would survive in the wild. They still needed wild does. So don’t nitpick me.)
As for the cartoon movie, meh. Not great, not awful. But what’s been in my mind ever since I re-read WD is, with the advancements in digital filmmaking technology, now someone could make a movie of that book and really do it right. Live action CGI rabbits, exquisitely modeled, expressive, lifelike–it could be beautiful!
Finally, Tales from Watership Down: an atrocious book, obviously culled together from a number of half done first drafts. I posted a full review of it here on my website, if anyone wants an in-depth look. I won’t say more beyond this: if you must read it, simply to spend a few more minutes with your favorite rabbits, be prepared for major disappointment.
Oh, yeah, and I too can’t read those last few pages without crying my eyes out. Hazel-rah forever!
Hmm, nobody mentioned Maia? I read this book for the first time in high school and really enjoyed it, particularly the character of Occula. A little over the time in sex and violence at times and Maia suffered from “Ayla perfection syndrome” at times. Liked the bits and pieces of new language/lore that Adams used to great effect in Watership Down.
It’s not on the same level as ‘Watership Down’, but The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett does capture some of the same feel. It’s a very good read.