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2021-01-05
Deep thoughts about a deep book (deeper than you might think for a story about bunnies)
Opening
0:35
Matt asks Ben if he feels the same way about bunnies as he does about squirrels
I couldn't care less about bunnies.
How do you feel about rabbits, their adult counterpart?
I suppose I didn't ever really think about what the relationship between bunnies and rabbits was. So bunnies are baby rabbits?
You have to—it's just like a kitten for a cat.
I thought it was like a nickname, like a puppy. Well, I suppose a puppy would be a baby dog.
1:10
Usually when I get around to reading a book, we make an episode out of it.
Ben says baby squirrels are just called "baby squirrels".
I think they're called "kits".
Main Topic
Ben recommends the audiobook for Watership Down. It originated as stories Richard Adams told his children.
Some books are best read out loud. Another example is Neil Gaiman's books.
It's based on The Aeneid and partly on The Odyssey.
Contrasts the mundane and the heroic
Non-Tolkien fantasy
Why did Homer have such a large impact on Western civilization?
Virgil connected the powerful myth of Homer to Rome's founding in The Aeneid.
The Iliad and The Odyssey are 24 books long. The Aeneid is 12 books long. Ben thinks Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings as 6 books as a continuation of the pattern.