Anyone ever read this wonderful series? It’s got multiple sagas to it.
Gonna age myself but I was growing up as they were coming out. So for many birthday parties you could expect whomever to get the newest one (and then the argument over who would borrow it first would break out.)
I’m reading the series right now! I’m sure I read Redwall and maybe Mossflower as a kid, but I think my introduction to them was probably the cartoon. They certainly hit different as an adult.
I’m reading in publication order, and I’m on the third book now - Mattimeo. There’s this bit I enjoy where we’re told several times that Martin’s sword is just a sword. While it might be a symbol, it isn’t magic - and although it can be used for good it could just as easily be used for evil. Matthias is taught this when he recovers the sword during Cluny’s siege, and Martin is told this when the blade is originally forged.
Anyway, early in Mattimeo one of Slagar’s gang floats the idea of stealing the sword. Slagar says they better not - it’s almost certainly a magic sword, and if someone who wasn’t a mouse tried to use it they’d surely be cursed.
I find it interesting, because apart from the fact that these are woodland creatures, Redwall is fairly low-fantasy. There is sometimes a supernatural element with visions of ancestors and prophecies and such, but it’s not the fantasy fare I’m used to of wizards slinging fireballs at skeletons. But it does make me wonder: could the sword be magic after all? Martin certainly has a touch of the divine to him, and his spirit does come to the aid of Redwall several times.
Maybe the magic comes from having a good heart and living your life to protect your friends. These days I feel we could all use a little more magic in our lives.
Wow this brings back some good memories. Loved those books.
His last name is pronounced like “Jakes”. I had to learn that and so you have to too.
I recently listened to book one with my six year old son. Great adventurous stuff, with terrible villains. But I must admit I was sometimes uncomfortable with the level of violence. The good guys don’t just win, they cleave their enemies in half, heads roll and blood spills. I suppose it goes without saying that my son loved it.
I read most of these when I was young and don’t really remember them being overly violent. What I do remember are long descriptions of food.
It’s so good. Read it as a kid, and his descriptions of feasts and banquets were so vivid it would make me salivate.
They made a childrens TV show out of it, and none other than Tim Curry himself voiced Cluny the rat!
I read the first one as an adult, and loved it. After I finished, and was thinking about it,I realized it was actually a book about all the various ways that an army would try to beat a siege, and breach the castle walls. Brute force, over, under, using spies and traitors, lone operative, etc., all under the guise of a children’s story. Fascinating.
is it like the rats of nimh?
No idea.
