Wednesday, September 20, 2006
The greatest lessons we receive are not from cynical retellings of true events but from imaginative retellings of the world as it is. One of my favorite books, to be reread again and again is Watership Down by Richard Adams. In the book, a band of rabbits flees the destruction of its homeland to seek life in the wide world. Across the way they stumble onto issues of leadership, outside enemies seeking their destruction, a totalitarian warren bent on dominating all its neighbors and the age-old problem of starting a new life. One of their most interesting adventures, however, concerns a group of rabbits who live near a farm and are routinely trapped for fur and food. This has an interesting effect on their psyche, one not all that different from the one common in the West today with Arab extremists at our very throat.
"Listen, Dandelion. You're fond of stories, aren't you? I'll tell you one--yes, one for El-ahrairah to cry at. Once there was a fine warren on the edge of a wood, overlooking the meadows of a farm. It was big, full of rabbits. Then, one day, the white blindness came and the rabbits fell sick and died. But a few survived, as they always do. The warren became almost empty. One day the farmer thought, 'I could increase those rabbits; make them part of my farm--their meat, their skins. Why should I bother to keep rabbits in hutches? They'll do very well where they are.' He began to shoot all elil (badgers, foxes, stoats and owls). He put out food for the rabbits but not too near the warren. For his purpose they had to become accustomed to going about in the fields and woods. And then he snared them--not too many: as many as he wanted and not as many as would frighten them all away or destroy the warren. And they grew big and strong and healthy for he saw to it that they had all of the best, particularly in winter, and nothing to fear, except the running knot in the hedge gap and the wood path....The rabbits became strange in many ways, different from other rabbits. They knew well enough what was happening. But even to themselves they pretended that all was well, for the food was good, they were protected, they had nothing to fear but the one fear; and that struck here and there, never enough at a time to drive them all away. They forgot the ways of wild rabbits...for what use had they for tricks and cunning, living in the enemy's warren and paying his price? They found out other marvelous arts to take the place of tricks and old stories. They danced in ceremonious greeting. They made songs like the birds and made Shapes on the walls; and though these could not help them at all, yet they passed the time and enabled them to tell themselves that they were splendid fellows, the very flower of Rabbitry, cleverer than magpies. They had no Chief Rabbit...Instead Frith sent them strange singers, beautiful and sick like oak apples....And since they could not bear the truth, these singers, who in some other place might have been wise, gulped out fine folly, about dignity and acquiesence, and anything else that could make believe that the rabbits loved the shining wire."
A better summary of life in Western Europe since World War II has not been penned.
"Listen, Dandelion. You're fond of stories, aren't you? I'll tell you one--yes, one for El-ahrairah to cry at. Once there was a fine warren on the edge of a wood, overlooking the meadows of a farm. It was big, full of rabbits. Then, one day, the white blindness came and the rabbits fell sick and died. But a few survived, as they always do. The warren became almost empty. One day the farmer thought, 'I could increase those rabbits; make them part of my farm--their meat, their skins. Why should I bother to keep rabbits in hutches? They'll do very well where they are.' He began to shoot all elil (badgers, foxes, stoats and owls). He put out food for the rabbits but not too near the warren. For his purpose they had to become accustomed to going about in the fields and woods. And then he snared them--not too many: as many as he wanted and not as many as would frighten them all away or destroy the warren. And they grew big and strong and healthy for he saw to it that they had all of the best, particularly in winter, and nothing to fear, except the running knot in the hedge gap and the wood path....The rabbits became strange in many ways, different from other rabbits. They knew well enough what was happening. But even to themselves they pretended that all was well, for the food was good, they were protected, they had nothing to fear but the one fear; and that struck here and there, never enough at a time to drive them all away. They forgot the ways of wild rabbits...for what use had they for tricks and cunning, living in the enemy's warren and paying his price? They found out other marvelous arts to take the place of tricks and old stories. They danced in ceremonious greeting. They made songs like the birds and made Shapes on the walls; and though these could not help them at all, yet they passed the time and enabled them to tell themselves that they were splendid fellows, the very flower of Rabbitry, cleverer than magpies. They had no Chief Rabbit...Instead Frith sent them strange singers, beautiful and sick like oak apples....And since they could not bear the truth, these singers, who in some other place might have been wise, gulped out fine folly, about dignity and acquiesence, and anything else that could make believe that the rabbits loved the shining wire."
A better summary of life in Western Europe since World War II has not been penned.
// posted by The Pendragon @ 1:56 PM 
