Letters for Redwall

If you have never heard of "Redwall," think Stewart Little meets The Hobbit. Written by British author Brian Jacques, it is a series of children's novels set in a fictional world populated solely by woodland creatures. The action usually takes place around Redwall Abbey and typically depicts a new Tolkien-esc horde of rats, weasels, and other vermin trying to take the abbey, which is heroically defended by the abbey mice and their patron saint, Martin the Warrior.

That's just a rough idea.

When I first picked up Redwall about ten years ago, I was enthralled by the range of story-telling in those pages. A veteran of The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, I expected a lot from fantasy, and Mr. Jacques delivered in splendid style. The prose are simple enough for children to read, but not under-written or dull, the descriptions are vibrant (Jacques LOVES to write about food especially), and the action was astonishingly vivid. Though not disturbingly graphic, battle scenes are not for the squeamish, as foxes, badgers, rats, voles, moles, hares, otters, mice, and squirrels crash together in scrums worthy of Brave Heart. But the blood-letting is not the complete story, as most of the tale revolves around the swashbuckling adventures of Redwall's inhabitants and their allies.

Mr. Jacques began publishing in the mid-eighties, and is still going strong, with another book (The Rogue Crew, I believe) slated for 2011. But the man was born in 1939. Seeing that prompted me to write a long-delayed thank-you to this outstanding author, because thanks to him, I began writing in the first place. Lewis and Tolkien introduced me to worlds beyond worlds, but it was Jacques who convinced me to put pen to paper.

So thank you, Mr. Jacques, for writing such outstanding adventure tales for children! Thank you for every sea-faring otter, for every unctuous stoat, for every towering badger lord. Thank you for fights and food and enduring friendships. My hat is off to you, sir.

If this has you interested, be sure to check out Mr. Jacques official site, complete with a store, book chronologies, and other information.

Lifestyle

In my latest perusings of Making a Literary Life, author Carolyn See advised her readers to “pretend” to be a writer. What in the wide, wide world of sports? I do not pretend, woman: I do!

Oh wait, moving on, she makes a very good point; that is, what your muse wants your muse should get, i.e. mountain vistas, cocktail parties and wild boat rides down the Nile. Naturally, this advice could render some adverse results. Infidelity, embezzlement, and boarding actions by Somali pirates come to mind. But in terms of tailoring your life and personal self-image to your writerly tastes, I am intrigued.

So let’s see, what does my writerly self look like? I like the idea of long sleeves, since they lend their wearer a sense of sophisticated sobriety – chill short sleeves are good, but sanguine by comparison, long sleeves are alert. I’ve got those and the glasses – rectangular in the style of my inner, hip professor.

Notebooks are a must, both lined for journaling and blank for sketching. Got those too. Now I just need an office, with wood-paneled floors, and wood baseboards, and wood trim in every corner – even trimming the ceiling – a small, but cozy fireplace; a big swivel chair that reclines so that I can prop one foot on the heavy oak desk when conducting an interview, pipe in hand – selected from my collection of handmade antiques – imposing wooden shelves on at least two walls – all my books will be leather bound, even the paperbacks, courtesy of a custom leatherworking shop – and one of those large, revolving globes that sits in a three-legged frame. To say nothing of the human skull resting near my right hand for those truly morose moments of imaginative fervor.

Lifestyle-wise, I’d like bodyguards in turtlenecks, blazers, and khaki slacks, though only for those black tie events that harbor lurking assassins. And speaking of death, unless I die in bed with “rooooooosebuuud” preceding my death rattle, I’d like to be standing at the epicenter of a cataclysmic meteoric impact.

Review of "Making A Literary Life," by Carolyn See