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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: R.I.P. Richard Adams
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
At 96 he lived a good, long life, and his books brought enjoyment to millions. As one site said, "El-Ahrairah finally came to take him." (And I didn't choke up until I read that.)
May his memory be eternal.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
The ending of Watership Down seems very appropriate today.
RIP
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Personally I preferred Shardik and Maia to Watership Down, but all of his work that I read was amazing. It's a sad loss.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Watership Down was amazing. So good that it gave birth to a whole subgenrelet of fantasy fiction in which (some species of mammal here) have an entire culture and life unknown to humans and sometimes save the world. The only title that comes to mind is Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams but I know there are epics about ants, moles, etc. None of them were anywhere near as good as Richard Adams' work.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
"Watership Down" was amazing.
Light and peace to Adams.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Well put.
We had that weird argument about kid lit back in April, and the repeated invocation of Adams's name made me pick up Watership Down again. When I started reading it again the same thing happened as the first time I read it- I kept thinking of ways to describe my real life daily experience in Lapine.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Yes, you're seeing the true world builder at work. Adams could create a reality that was really real -- you can swear in Lapine! And he beat Tolkien -- he made not one world, but several.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Is WD kid-lit? Maybe YA. But bunnies fucking like bunnies hardly seems the stuff of pre-adolescent fiction.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
But bunnies fucking like bunnies hardly seems the stuff of pre-adolescent fiction.
There's no explicit rabbit sex in Watership Down although breeding is important to the plot.
In every other respect the characters appear convincingly to be rabbits that think and talk. Unlike say Duncton Wood where the purported moles are just human Buddhists in velvet coats.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
mousethief
Agreed
You can add the level of violence, both human on rabbit and rabbit on rabbit. Just because it is about rabbits does not mean it is fluffy, cute and safe for children.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
My Place of Employment (New York Public Library) catalogs Watership Down as adult or young adult (teenage), not children's.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
There's no explicit rabbit sex in Watership Down although breeding is important to the plot.
No explicit sex, no. But sex. Well, "breeding." More than Hazel wanted there to be, but not as bad as it could have been. That's more, I think, than is appropriate in kid-lit.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemr:
Personally I preferred Shardik and Maia to Watership Down, but all of his work that I read was amazing. It's a sad loss.
I too preferred Shardik. But Watership Down was very good too. A great Author.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
How about y'all just replace my hasty description of the conversation Adams came up in with what ever suits you, and focus on the bit where I talk about the impact reading his work had on me? I'd rather be included in than single out. I mean, if my error is not too unforgivable.
Because the bit about wandering around for days with the language of the warren in my head was what mattered to me, and I thought maybe others could identify.
[ 28. December 2016, 20:35: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
I've never read the book or seen the film (I have, however, made the pie) but, as a child of the 1970s, it was always there and a few weeks ago I turned on the radio partway through an audio adaptation and instantly knew what I was listening to.
Back twenty years or so ago, when I found that the real Watership Down was just down the road I went to take a look - here it is.
So even without reading the book, it meant something.
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Kelly--
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
We had that weird argument about kid lit back in April, and the repeated invocation of Adams's name made me pick up Watership Down again. When I started reading it again the same thing happened as the first time I read it- I kept thinking of ways to describe my real life daily experience in Lapine.
Cool! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Gill H
Shipmate
# 68
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Posted
I often play Bookworm on my phone during my commute, and get irrationally annoyed when it won't accept 'tharn' as a word.
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*sigh* We can’t all be Alan Cresswell.
- Lyda Rose
Posts: 9313 | From: London | Registered: May 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
That's when you know it's a great book -- when it is real even off the page.
I am visiting my brother for the holidays, and his daughter my niece has been re-enacting all the Harry Potter books with two friends and filming it. They've been doing this for ten years now, from when they were young teens until now in their late twenties. All the footage is lovingly edited and strung together so that you can see all seven novels with these three girls playing -all- the roles. It takes a truly great book to inspire this kind of devotion; I'm reminded of the sisters in Little Women who role-played Pickwick.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Cathscats
Shipmate
# 17827
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Posted
Loved Watership Down always, but loved it more when I read Adams' autobiography and intuited that the book is, on one level, an elegy for the war-time comrades he knew and lost.
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"...damp hands and theological doubts - the two always seem to go together..." (O. Douglas, "The Setons")
Posts: 176 | From: Central Highlands | Registered: Sep 2013
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