Chapter 23: Kehaar
2016-02-01 20:24![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmc28Human beings say, 'It never rains but it pours.'
[This post is part of my Watership Down read through. You are welcome to join in at any time; please read my introduction post first.]
[This post is part of my Watership Down read through. You are welcome to join in at any time; please read my introduction post first.]
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Date: 2016-02-01 20:51 (UTC)* Bigwig and Silver being willing to face up to the unknown bird
* Bigwig's friendship with Kehaar - built on admiration, but still Bigwig's not above letting Kehaar think that searching for rabbits is his idea, and nor is Hazel
* the difference between Bigwig's "he" and Hazel's "it" for Kehaar (at first; by the time Kehaar has gone looking for other rabbits, Hazel is using "he"
* Fiver being prophetic again ("trickery; great danger; and blessing for the warren")
* the interesting nugget about stressed does re-absorbing litters
The revelation that an all-male cast is unsustainable was surprising to me the first time; now I read it after years of awareness of the Bechdel test, the research of the Geena Davis Institute into relative numbers of female and male characters in film and tv, and it's not nearly so surprising. "It may seem incredible that the rabbits had given no thought to so vital a matter. But men have made the same mistake more than once ..." Indeed.
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Date: 2016-02-02 08:25 (UTC)I noted also that Bigwig's tendency to pick fights becomes a joke here, rather like the throwaway remark about Irishmen in an earlier chapter; interesting that the real life basis for Bigwig was Desmond Kavanagh, an Irish journalist turned soldier called Paddy by Adams and their comrades. Should we be hearing Bigwig's voice in a soft brogue?
The point about pregnant does' ability to reabsorb litters if they are stressed fascinated me when I was eight, and fascinates me now.
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Date: 2016-02-03 15:56 (UTC)