Brian Jaques - Redwall

by Harbinger,

I’ve always wanted to be a writer, its one of those secret fantasies people have like playing for England or suffocating Tony Blair….perhaps I should not have mentioned that one. Even as a child I wanted to write, from three Brave nights in search of a sacred Pork pie, to a well meaning man driven to shooting an ex-Prime Minister… (off I go again). I may never have been able to write much more than I could fit on the back of a beer mat, but the object of my inspiration remains with me today.

As a child I remember reading the Redwall books which I am unashamed to admit I still read today. When I have had a stressful day and feel sad an depressed that a civilised country could bring a person like Tony Blair into existence, it is good to regress into a child like state and forget everything. Brian Jaques is undoubtedly a great author, taking an old fashioned fantasy setting and making the characters take the form of animals. His first book (Redwall) is embryonic indicating that his world might take place in ours but in later books this disappears. 

Matthias a young novice at Redwall Abbey is an adventurer at heart and balks a little under the rules of the Abbey. Peace is broken when Cluny ‘The Scourge’ a notorious an unpleasant rat sets his sights on the abbeys strong defensible walls.The animals living in the woods are forced behind the abbey walls as Cluny’s press gangs attempt to build up a force to take the Abbey. It falls to young Matthias to retrieve the legendary sword of Martin the Warrior (The founder of the abbey) and use it to defend Redwall. However, Cluny is not the only thing in the woods to be scared of.

The Tales of Redwall are always a great read, even to us big kids. It is a book of wonderful little touches particularly in its descriptions of food. I have heard other fans of Redwall (I am truly not the only sad person in the world) describe how the Jaques’ description of fictitious meals left them feeling hungry. The reason why I have reviewed this book is that it is not the sort of book over protective parents would necessarily like. There is quite a lot of killing that goes on, not just of the villains but the heroes as well. Interestingly Jaques uses accent and dialect as a device to display the differences between the animals. For example Hares and Rabbits speak with a distinctly upper class accent (and display an obsession with food), where as Moles speak with and almost incomprehensively thick Somerset accent. This gives his world much more colour without requiring the effort of inventing languages like JRR Tolkien.

In many ways Jaques can be compared to Tolkien in style and as such may be susceptible to similar criticisms, namely a formulaic approach to the villains and heroes. With the exception of a handful of characters, Villains remain pure evil and Heroes are purely good.However these are not issues that effect the overall achievement of the book which is being fun a thoroughly readable to adults.

Give it a try, when none of your friends are around to avoid any sniggering and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

TTFN