Tales from Watership Down (1996)

This doesn't hold a candle to the original, although as a fan of Watership Down, this did make me smile from time to time, which is why I rated it as high as I did, but I suspect if I had come across this book somehow without reading the original, I'd have been less than impressed. The original book is a novel, this is a collection of 19 tales, some linked but mostly not. The first book really was a grand adventure, a tale of leadership and friendship and remarkable for its--yes, world-building, as Adams created a culture of and for rabbits. The folk stories embedded in the novel helped enrich that culture, and gave the ending a feel of myth that made a shiver run down my spine.

That just wasn't the case for me here. About two-thirds of the book are filled with folk tales about El-ahrairah "the Prince of a Thousand Enemies," the hero of rabbit lore that worked so well to enrich Watership Down. I think my favorite of those tales here was the first, "The Sense of Smell"--even if it was the one that I felt was most politically correct, and scientifically incorrect. (Man has not been the greatest cause of extinction. Look up the Cambrian Mass Extinction of over 500 million years ago. Or look up "Dinosaurs, extinction of.") The first two sections of tales are framed as being shared among the Watership Down rabbits. The third and last section of 8 tales are about the Watership Down rabbits and felt like catching up with old friends, even if this latest outing is by no means as impressive. Oh, and there are references to events in the previous novel left unexplained. So for more reasons than one, if you haven't read Watership Down yet, this really isn't the place to start. If you have and loved it though, as long as you know going in this is a different sort of animal--well, no reason you shouldn't enjoy it. ( )

Not up to par with the original "Watership Down"-big letdown for me. ( )

The beginning (really the whole first part with the El-arairah tales) was quite slow so it took me some time to like the book. The second and third parts were more to my liking. There was a red line to follow and especially the last half of the book, telling of further adventures of the Watership Down rabbits, was pleasing. Nice to read of them again. ( )

not as good as Watership Down but it's still a very enjoyable read. ( )

I was really disappointed by this. I love Watership Down almost unreservedly - I love the sheer originality of it, I love the culture of the rabbits, the grand epic feel against the beautiful evocation of the English countryside. The gorgeous epilogue, with its mythic feel, that gives us this:

"Yes, of course," said Hazel, hoping he would be able to remember his name in a moment. Then he saw that in the darkness of the burrow the stranger's ears were shining with a faint silver light."

But the follow-up is just no good at all, compared to the original. The publisher of my edition of Watership Down has, obviously and hilariously, demanded that the blurb big up the adventure but not mention the rabbits, giving us a band of "adventurers" leaving their "doomed city". But the sequel really is just a book about rabbits. The stories are nearly all unsatisfactory, and unlike in the original, where Dandelion's tales of El-ahrairah have the real ring of trickster folktales, with clever tricks and lots of guile, the folktales fall insipidly flat.

I did like the fact that there's a gesture at addressing the problem in the original, when Hazel appoints Hyzenthlay as another Chief Rabbit, but the story doesn't really go anywhere with it, which is another disappointment. ( )