We did Watership Down in ninth grade. I was always pages and pages ahead of whatever we were assigned. And one day, I decided to memorize the names of all the rabbits, and it turned out to be the bonus question on the quiz.

That's... a lot of rabbits.

We never did that as an assigned book, but I had a teacher... fifth grade, I think? Anyway, she suggested it to me, so I took it home and read it. Came back the next day halfway through.

TEACHER: Wow, you got that far? ME: I finished it. I'm just re-reading the good parts.

To her credit, she went back to my teacher from the previous year to ask whether this was likely to be true.

Like I said, it would infuriate me less (edit, Richard III, not Watership Down) - as the gossipy, cheap, backstairs level of Clintonesque backstabbing it is - if it didn't contain some of his most potent language. And I hated the film versions, as well, because the historian in me can't stomach the carricature.

I'll stick with the Scots play, thanks. And Lear. And The Tempest. And Othello. And Henry V. And Romeo and Juliet (yeah, shmoopy, tough). And that gorgeous little thing he wrote about the Danish prince, even though it could have used an editor. And...

That's... a lot of rabbits.

I think there were only, what, seventeen?

Here's a can of worms, Deb, re: Hamlet movies--Branagh or Olivier? To get the ball rolling, I prefer Branagh's, despite his usual excesses in places.

I think there were only, what, seventeen?

Yeah, okay, you knew the reaction that was going to get.

Hazel, Fiver, Acorn, Speedwell, Dandelion, Blackberry, Hawkbit, Bigwig, Pipkin, Buckthorn... that's all I've got for the group from the very beginning.

ETA: Oh, and Silver.

I think there were only, what, seventeen?

Oh, hell. This is going to drive me bonkers.

Now I have to reread WD, damnit.

Nic just gave me an early birthday present: Border Crossing, by Rosie Thomas. She's a romance novelist, I think, but this is nonfiction; it's her chronicle of the 1996 Beijing to Paris road rally, using all vintage cars. We've been watching the multi-part documentary about it, and I'm fascinated.

Strawberry! There's a Strawberry too, isn't there?

No, I don't still remember all of them, dammit. Hell, I don't even remember as many as Katie does. Do love the book, though.

Is Hazel the big fighter? The one who, even though he's battered all to hell and gone, gets up and says, "My Head Rabbit told me to hold this position," and freaks out the enemy rabbits, who can't conceive of a rabbit tough enough to give this one orders?

Branagh or Olivier?

Oh, definitely Branagh's, for me. Olivier's was a very specific timepiece, done for a very specific purpose: chivvy up the Brits to deal with the Nazis. There's no subtlety in it anywhere that I can remember, as well done as it was.

Branagh's melted me. It just fucking killed me. I went back and saw it four times in the first two weeks it was out; the music alone would have made me fall in love, but the long tracking shot after Agincourt, the purity of the St. Crispin's speech, a little touch of Harry in the night...

Damn. On any given day, ask me to name my top five movies ever, and that one comes up in the top three.

Strawberry gets picked up on the way. (I was re-reading it... this winter? Didn't finish it. Maybe I'll take it with me on the cruise.)