Episode 340: Watership Down by Richard Adams, Introduction, Ch. 1-10

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast and a new book discussion series! This month, Angelina and Thomas will be covering Richard Adams’ Watership Down. Beginning of their commonplace quotes, they talk about the background of this book and what type of story this is, as well as how Angelina is approaching this first read. Thomas gives some biographical information on Richard Adams, including the publishing challenges facing Adams. Angelina highlights the epigraphs beginning each chapter and their significance. Some of the other topics Thomas and Angelina share their thoughts about include the classical references in these chapters, the allegory of the journey of the soul, and the archetypes and obstacles that we may see in the rest of the book. Join us again next week for chapters 11-21!

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Commonplace Quotes:

He is even said to have held burlesque series in his village church, preaching blasphemous sermons to a congregation of cats.

Charles Petrie, from “When Britain Saved Europe“

One of the most remarkable aspects of the book is that it is not one fine story, but simultaneously so many fine stories, so many types of stories. To a greater or lesser degree, Watership Down is a beast fable, a fantasy, a mythological tale, an epic, a political/Utopian novel, and an allegory. Richard Adams emerges not just as a storyteller but as a master teller of many types of stories.

Robert Miltner, from “‘Watership Down’: A Genre Study“

Afterwards

by Thomas Hardy

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
“He was a man who used to notice such things?”

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid’s soundless blink,
The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,
“To him this must have been a familiar sight.”

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,
One may say, “He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,
But he could do little for them; and now he is gone.”

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,
Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,
“He was one who had an eye for such mysteries?”

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom
And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell’s boom,
“He hears it not now, but used to notice such things?”

Book List:

Amazon affiliate links below

Watership Down by Richard Adams

The Aeneid by Virgil

The Oresteian Trilogy: Agamemnon, The Choephori, The Eumenides by Aeschylus

Riki-Tiki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling

Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser

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