Redwall

Redwall

By Brian Jacques

What can the peace-loving mice of Redwall Abbey do to defend themselves against Cluny the Scourge and his battle-seasoned army of rats? If only they had the sword of Martin the Warrior, they might have a chance. But the legendary weapon has long been forgotten-except, that is, by the bumbling young apprentice Matthias, who becomes the unlikeliest of heroes.

I used to love the Redwall series, it was so popular when I was growing up.  Well you know what they say: never meet your heroes, or in this case, never re-read your childhood books as an adult.  I spent the first half of this book NOT GETTING IT, like "If they have horses and hay carts, that implies humans, but if humans, then how did no one notice a GIANT ABBEY populated by woodland creatures?  How does this abbey hold mice plus a badger plus a hedgehog plus a flock of sparrows plus a fox plus a pond full of enormous fish plus who know what all else? Are the doors large enough for Constance to fit through, and if so, how come they aren't too heavy for the mice? Do they have sets of nested doors? How come no one could climb the walls of the abbey except a super special rat thing? Are the walls made of sheet metal?  Mice are great climbers.  Better than people!  How come there is a GIANT SNAKE roaming through the woods and no one knows this??? Or "remembers", since I guess he's passed into myth status. 

Since woodland mice's lives are like, one year long (three in captivity), how long has this abbey been around, really?  Do they have to switch abbots like, every six months?  And for that matter how old is Matthias? He's running around in giant sandals (which, were those ever fixed or did he miraculously become more agile?) and then in like, 48 hours he's taken over as military commander (with no qualifications - by the way, and I know this is a digression of a digression, but all of their best military minds go off on separate side adventures out of the abbey without telling anyone! How is this responsible leadership?! Constance, Jess, Basil Stag Hare, Matthias, all just go traipsing through the countryside on guerilla missions of dubious importance on their own whims.  Man oh man.  They're all getting demoted when I'm done).

And don't get me started on what a dick Matthias is - he throws the sparrow off a roof just to prove he can, he's super rude to the GUOSIM when they're arguing about whether or not to help him, like, you don't fucking deserve these strangers' help, especially when you're both rude, and it's a wholly unnecessary attack on an adder which (spoiler alert!) ends in two shrew deaths. Not to mention the fact that you've spent days? weeks? who knows! on this quest to find a sword.  Just take one off a dead rat!

And don't get me started on how gross it is that the abbot is like, "Matthias! You're a great warrior now and you shouldn't be a monk!  And Cornflower, you're a girl, you seem fertile, marry Matthias!" EEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWW! I mean, she does have a minor battle role, but mostly she's there for Matthias to eyefuck and then bring soup to all the defenders of the wall.

This was originally supposed to be a Ten Second Review but I got carried away, as you can see.   Is Redwall fun? Yes, absolutely, who doesn't want to read about foxes and weasels fighting mice and sparrows and moles?  Is it hilarious and adorable to picture mice wearing widdle monk robes? Awwww, yes. Does Jacques take some creative liberties in deciding which species are going to be "naturally bad" and which good? Uh, YES.  I mean, it mostly breaks down along carnivorous lines (with the possible exceptions of Gingevere and Julian, the cat and barn owl, respectively) which makes some sense from the perspective of a mouse, but wasn't this the whole problem people had with Slytherin house in Harry Potter? If you put a bunch of kids in a room and tell them they're bad, of course you'll end up with evil children!  I mean, where's the love for the poisonous snakes of the world? Well, in reality they're a protected species because they're in decline over the UK (perhaps due to homicidal mice), so that's good.  But yes, Redwall  is a little black and white about these things, so if you're older than, say, fifteen, it might annoy you.

Also, side note, but there are a LOT of gruesome deaths for a children's book.  More pirate deaths than in Treasure Island! (Note, this may not be factual, because a lot, like a lot of pirates die in Treasure Island too. A pirate's life indeed: scurvy and early death for the entertainment of children!). Some of the "goodies" die too, including a particularly sad death by fox burglar that I vaguely remembered was coming, but was still heart-breaking.  Just goes to show, there's no good fox but a dead fox (rolls eyes)!

But this series is, as I said, pretty fun, and the riddles are always a high-point, along with the adventure. My favorites were always the otters (who make a blink and you'll miss them appearance here with their slingshots), so I most enjoyed Pearls of Lutra even though it was very unconnected with the main Mossflower storylines.