"Watership Down" author, Richard Adams, dead at 96

I just learned that author Richard Adams passed away today at 96.

Lee Gambin 3/23/16

Before cable, a lot of special cartoon films and animations would be on regular TV channels. It's how I got to see a lot of these stories before they were put on VHS and later migrated to cable companies' channels. When I was about six or seven, I caught "Watership Down" one evening. With its Genesis-like 'In the beginning'-type introduction, I was immediately pulled into the very brutal story about a group of rabbits leaving their warren to journey where there would be plenty of food, space, and resources where they could breed and live in peace.

reddit.com/r/thewarren/

These rabbits had a society, they had culture - their oral history was expansive - and they had spiritual beliefs - the sun was Lord to them - and they had lore and legends - Elahrairah was their Adam and the one that made them fall from grace. However, he was still revered and considered responsible for giving the rabbit race their cunning, skills, and physical capabilities.

watershipdown.wikia.com/wiki/Violet

Early in the animation, it got quite violent and visceral, with Fiver, the runt of the group but also a prophet, experiencing horrific visions that compelled the small group of protagonists on their quest. One of my siblings, I am the youngest, came into the living room and asked in horror what kind of bloody cartoon was I watching. I begged them not to change the channel and for the rest of the program, my belly on the rug, twirling my feet in the air, I was enraptured.

Goodreads.com

When I learned "Watership Down" was a book, I kept in mind I would read it when I had a chance. That chance came when I was in community college and usually hung out in the English department, chatting with my Creative Writing professor and some of the other faculty that knew me. One day, while wandering in the department's lobby, I chanced on a table of books. An office worker said I could take as many as I wanted. She explained that every couple of months, faculty members will cull through their office libraries and bring their findings to the lobby for anyone popping up to take what they could. Lo, there was a copy of "Watership Down"! I immediately looked at how many pages (it's a hefty novel) and grabbed it. When I got home, I couldn't put the story down. It had, of course, more details and subplots that the film could not include. It was still as brutal but with the psychological impact of the reader's imagination. To use a cliche', it 'fired my imagination'. I had already decided I wanted to write fantasy when in high school after getting the "Death Gate" trilogy from my sister as a Xmas gift. Reading 'Watership' validated for me to continue to write in the Furry genre!

RIP Richard Adams. We will miss you but your characters, Elahrairah, the Black Rabbit of Elil, Hazel-Rah, Fiver, and Bigwig will continue to live on as will you, in our hearts. :(

A class that changes...

Professor Tixier would prove a force of nature. She was a dynamo. An intellectual to be reckoned with. I was privileged by the English Department to take this dynamic teacher's class because of my high marks (Goodness, too many British dramas)/scores.

The day I walked in, I knew that, to coin and milk a cliche' to the bone, I had found a kindred spirit.

"Joseph Campbell" (c) Elephantjournal.com

Prof. Tixier taught a course - name escapes me now- about the importance of storytelling and its role in modern psychology and society.

I first heard the 'Monomyth' from her. I also learned about Mr. Joseph Campbell, and his famed "Hero with a Thousand Faces".

"Ursula K. le Guin" (c) Guardian.co.uk

She also reintroduced a writer I dearly took for granted, Ursula K. le Guin.
With myth, storytelling, and epic fantasy being taught all in one course, you would think it would be a picnic... It wasn't.

Did most of my classmates, who happened to be freshmen and sophomores to my junior, understand the treasure trove that was this class? NO, they did not.

Yet, I absorbed, and through osmosis, took in what she explained was the importance of storytelling to any culture. In coming to grips with WHY we tell stories, this topic also became the salve to much underpinnings within the Psychology industry, another field for which I am a fan.

I gave her a story I had recently finished, and she commented, not in the passionate way of my earlier English and Creative Writing instructors, but in an academic, didactic manner that forced me to view my tales, not ONLY as a source of entertainment to possible readers, but to how I viewed my world, my personal psychology.

Professor Tixier is dead and gone for over 6 years (at the time of this post), and I doubt she knew the impact she had on me as a person, and more important, as a writer. My junior/community college is now a four-year, and there is a grant named after this wonderful woman, as it should be. But the true testament to her legacy is what we, her students, and others' lives she touched, may do with the knowledge she gave freely and sincerely.

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