Was "Tales" as good as you hoped?

[Hawkbit]

Basically the question asks it all....when (and if) you read Tales From Watership Down was it what you expected?



I for one, was disappointed with the follow up to Watership's furry residents.  I felt Richard did not put it as much magic and detail into the chapters as he had done previously in the novel.  The chapter on Campion wasn't too bad, and I felt how his death was handled was decent.  However, I did enjoy hearing more El-ahrairah stories, namely The Sense of Smell, The Story of the Great Marsh, and The Story of the Terrible Hay-Making.  I think these stories showed the rabbit prince in a new light, one where he was boastful in some cases, but clearly made mistakes.  This showed he is still very much a mortal rabbit that is just like us.  


So what's your take on the follow up book?

[Campion1]

"The Story of the terrible hay-making" was the best thing to come out of the book. The one with the maze was ok... Otherwise it was a book with rushed ideas that could have been made better

[Clover]

This is one question I can't answer right now, I'll have to finish the first book first. But I've heard how it ends, that surprised me. I liked Campion.

[Hawkbit]

Sorry if I spoiled it.

[Clover]

It was google books. I didn't even notice that you mentioned his death till now.

[Campion1]

As was said, it was a rushed book whenever it actually came to the watership down story. I think I remember bigwig and hazel debating on killing a certain character in the book, which I found to be uncharacteristic.

[Clover]

As was said, it was a rushed book whenever it actually came to the watership down story.

I'd have to agree with you. Half the stuff that happened in parts one and two were boring and went quick. Part three, I didn't even care for. But it was my favorite of the three parts. All togehter, I wasted $10 on the book, it was a waste of the money and the time it took me to read it. Hard to even believe that it was a sequel to Watership Down. I've written better than this, and that is hard to believe, a professional author wrote something that I think is worse than anything I've written.

[Myrkin]

So you wouldn't recommend me to read it?

[Clover]

Not really. It lacks the detail and action the original novel had. I can see why it wasn't made into a movie and the tv series wasn't based on it. Like I said before, it was a waste of money if you ask me.

[Hawkbit]

If you like El-ahrairah stories, well then buy it for that.  For the epilogue to WSD, you might be disappointed with what you read.

[Clover]

I was really disappointed with parts one and two a lot. I had to read over that part where a rabbit killed that cat to see who did it, and what happened. The whole book was terrible. I didn't even recommened it to my seminar teacher when I asked her if she knew there was a second.

I will admit I've read worse books, but this was pretty terrible.

[Campion1]

I recommend you calm down about it. The book DID have it's moments, with the tale of the terrible hay-making or whatever being it's best little story. Some bits of it did offer some interesting insight into the rabbit's views of humans (the hedge maze story, the well, and that ghost thing) and their interaction with each other and other animals. Myrkin, you can give it a spin if you want. It IS Watership after all, and it was written by Richard Adams. It's just, as was stated, these things could have been developed better if they weren't rushed.

[Bluebell]

I'm going to read this sometime soon. I enjoyed the moments in WSD when the rabbits were questioning the nature of humans and other animals.

In WSD, the chapter 'The Road and the Common' was a great way of showing what the rabbits thought of "the black river" that the hrududu travel on. It was little touches like that that drew me into their world, where something as convention as a road to humans is of great mystery to a rabbit. I think Adams gets into the eyes and mind of a rabbit really well. There's no way to really know what a rabbit thinks of us or other animals, but exploration by means of anthropomorphism has always interested me.

[Owsla-rah]

I already know the book was not as good as the first before I read it. But I read it out of curiosity and it turn out to be a decent book to read even though not all all the short stories in the book were not all that great, but there a few good ones in it. Here is a few of the ones I liked.

The Rabbit's Ghost Story
The Story of the Great Marsh
The Story of the Terrible Hay-Making
Stonecrop

And another story I kinda liked is 'Speedwell's Story' because it was a funny and weird rabbit story and I can't help but wonder if he was on shrooms when he told that story. XD

[Folgrimeo]

The first part, with all of El-ahrairah's tales... that was lovely. They were interesting, vivid, strange, and some of them surprisingly scary. That "Hole in the Sky" one... shudder. My favorite moment is in the first tale where the Prince of Tomorrow lowers his head, gets up close to El-ahrairah... just imagine having your whole view be that big gentle face... and breathes or something to give Elah some magic power. In fact, it all felt magical. We didn't question how or why Elah could put an entire river in his ear. I remember thinking to myself that it was worth getting through "Watership Down" to help appreciate Lapine mythology. And yes, Speedwell's story rocked. I liked how he ate all the cabbages he could find, and all the cabbages he couldn't find just to be sure.

...but the rest of the book which returns to Hazel and company... the less said about that the better. That was severely disappointing. We didn't need to return to them, the first book ended well enough.