I’ve always enjoyed driving by myself on long trips; it normally provides a time for reflection and sifting through thoughts. It was on one of these drives down a vacant highway through north Georgia when my sister alerted me to the sudden death of author Brian Jacques on the morning of February 5, 2011.
Upon hearing of Mr. Jacques’ death, my meandering mental preoccupations gave way to an emotional progression of abject shock soon followed by a slow, creeping sadness that still seems to linger in the more nostalgic corners of my heart. Appropriately, after a few moments of reflection on that winter road, I realized that nostalgia was what always attracted me to the stories of Mr. Jacques.
The first book of Redwall was published in 1986, and over the course of the next 25 years would eventually grow to a 23 book series that chronicled the adventures and histories of a world of anthropomorphic creatures. Generally, the stories revolved around “good” animals (mice, hares, badgers, otters, squirrels) protecting themselves against “bad” animals (rats, ferrets, stouts, foxes, crows), with the occasional complex extended riddle or search-for-the-Holy-Grail type quest thrown in for good measure. These stories, with names such as Martin the Warrior, Marlfox, The Pearls of Lutra, and The Bellmaker, occurred within the deceptively safe confines of Redwall Abbey, the vast expanses of Mossflower wood, and even in the far, cold reaches of the Northern Isles across the sea. The vast, action- filled world of Redwall completely engaged my pre-Tolkien literary framework and for the first time in my life as a reader, I was able to experience a text as more than a means to rack up reading points in fourth grade English class.
To say that I was infatuated as a nerdy, now book-devouring elementary school kid would undervalue the depth of my affection for Redwall: I was in love, and I was in for the long haul. When we changed classes in school by simply walking across the hall, my current Redwall book went with me. When my family drove to church on Sundays, my “animal book” as my mother called it, was on my lap, open for me to enjoy. When book report time came around each month, guess what I chose to read? No, it was not A Wrinkle in Time.
When trying to convey the attraction and charm of Redwall to those who have yet to experience it, it is imperative to not simply mention the spirit of high adventure and otherworldliness of Redwall. Rather, any synopsis must include Mr. Jacques’s consistent detail of the unadorned joys of life, such as food. Shrimp’n’Hot Soup. Stuffed Savoury Mushrooms. Rubbadeedubb Pudding. Deeper’n’Ever Pie. All of these were common foodstuffs in the world of Redwall; forget reading for a moment, Redwall taught me a deeper appreciation for food and the process of cooking in ways I never even considered as a kid. Out with Little Debbie and in with buttered scones. Gold star, Mr. Jacques!
Prior to achieving worldwide acclaim, Mr. Jacques held such jobs as a truck driver, railway fireman, boxer, bus driver, playwright, and even milkman, but it wasn’t until he worked as a milkman that he discovered his finest vocation: storyteller. The tales of Redwall grew from the stories Mr. Jacques shared with the children of the Royal School for the Blind in Liverpool, one of the stops on his local milk route. Mr. Jacques always warmly referred to this original audience as his “special friends,” and spent a great deal of his time volunteering at the school later in his life.
As the original audience was the children of the Royal School for the Blind, the stories of Redwall were experienced by those who lived with the trademarks of an unfair, challenging life. Maybe Mr. Jacques’s words were simply an escape for the children. Perhaps his stories were voices to describe the wonder of an unseen world. As a boy, I saw no difference between escaping the toils of life and embracing something wonderful and otherworldly; perhaps the children of the Royal School felt the same way.
It is impossible to look back on those early days of reading wonder without taking stock of where I am now in my literary tastes. A quick survey of my bedside table uncovers titles by Joyce Carol Oates, Salman Rushdie, and Don DeLillo; no tales of woodland creatures and sea-faring vermin. Sexual frustration as a vehicle for violence. The nightmarish realities of certain 20th century dreams. Seemingly impassable ideological divides between East and West. The palpable pain at the heart of romance. The stories I read now are consumed with these tribulations, yet Redwall was a realm free of such tropes and themes; it instead nurtured a longing for a simple joy, and belief in a valiant, journeying narrative.
Good and evil were clear in Redwall; evil was sometimes in the most unlikely of places, but always recognized when it appeared in all its malice. Brian Jacques’s creation was the beginning of fiction for my young, naïve self, from which my current literary framework grew and hardened with experience. For those who prefer labels, Redwall was the ultimate post-post modern world, without which I would be unable to appreciate the complexity of the human condition as interpreted in modern literature. I think it has been an appropriate literary transition from childhood absolutes to my current complex adulthood. All journeys have a beginning, and Redwall was the front door I walked through in fourth grade on my literary road through life.
Stories of courage tested and angst-free coming of age in a far away, chivalric world have a way of making the pain in modern literary realities not so important or emblematic of one’s existence. Redwall was a land of not only welcome, fine cooking, and a quaint life, but also war, loss, and vengeance. However, Redwall taught that this war, loss and vengeance were not the defining elements of some prevailing existential condition, instead presenting them as unfortunate but unavoidable pitfalls on the road to lives of pastoral elegance enclosed in peace.
Perhaps Redwall was just escapism and ignored the realities of humanness so vividly illustrated by modern adult literature, but I’m inclined to assert Redwall illustrates a life that recognizes evil and resists it, one that chooses not to portray the beauty in brokenness, but rather embrace beauty in its purest, simplest pleasures.
So now I return to my drive down an empty highway through rural Georgia, still caught up in the nostalgia of a land of warrior mice, brave hares, and evil ferrets. As a young boy, the tales of Redwall and Brian Jacques’ unique, far away land were the epitome of high literature. As an older, more cynical twenty-something experiencing a world of post-modern malaise, it is still the myth of Redwall that I look to for a reflection and reminder of the beauty around me.
It seems that Mr. Jacques may now add one more occupation to his long list, for he was the architect of Redwall Abbey and the wondrous lives of its inhabitants. It is with great sadness and respect that I say good-bye to Brian Jacques and Redwall, resting assured that such men and such worlds cannot be forgotten. The absence still hurts though.