Apologies like the birds in the sky

[sovay]

I have been having an absolutely miserable night, but after venting at length to spatch about Brian Jacques' Outcast of Redwall (1995) I spent at least an hour reading about various mustelids online, including several species (tayra, hog badger, ferret-badger, grison) I hadn't known existed, and I think that was good for me.

(I liked ferrets. I found them clever, beautiful, charming creatures. I had had a stuffed animal black-footed ferret since late elementary school. By the time Outcast came out, I even knew several domestic ferrets in person; they were playful and I did not object to their smell. That was the novel where I realized that Jacques' species essentialism was immutable, and I felt painfully betrayed. I understood the long shadow of The Wind in the Willows, but I couldn't understand how Jacques could miss that his readers would at some point identify with Veil, the orphaned ferret kit adopted into a society of mice and voles and moles—the outsider, the one who feels there's something wrong with them for just being what they are—and then fail to see how it would hurt them to have Veil confirmed as irredeemable, genetically evil after all. He went so far as to give a morally ambiguous character a selfless death scene and then retract it a few chapters later. That ending accomplished what endless recipes for damson and chestnut and Mummerset dialect could not: I burnt out on the series on some deep level and have never even now gone back, despite positive memories of the first four books and their unique combination of cozy talking animals and total batshit weirdness. If you can't appreciate ferrets, I'm out of time for you.)

Comments

[lilysea]

That was the novel where I realized that Jacques' species essentialism was immutable

Yeah, I am not a big fan of biology-is-destiny...

I'm looking at you, David Brin, with your sentient dolphin/orca hybrid who OF COURSE goes insane and murders all the other sentient dolphins...

[sovay]

I'm looking at you, David Brin, with your sentient dolphin/orca hybrid who OF COURSE goes insane and murders all the other sentient dolphins...

Ack. (What book is this in?)

[cmcmck]

I totally appreciate ferrets! Amazing creatures! :o)

[sovay]

I totally appreciate ferrets! Amazing creatures!

I didn't think it was just me!

I think I just have to accept that I was not the target audience for Redwall, because I loved animals like foxes and ferrets and I had met intelligent and affectionate rats and I don't do well with anyone being genetically evil, but it still burned.

[asakiyume]

Super bad move, Brian Jacques!

And the thing is, all you have to do is look at rats and mice and ferrets for like five minutes to see that (a) individual animals are super different, personality wise (just like people and dogs and cats),[ETA: and only singled out mice and rats and ferrets because we're talking about Redwall: basically I think there's difference among all creatures] and (b) clearly capable of cross-species friendships, points that fundamentally refute that species essentialism.

I could more or less forgive species essentialism if the protagonists were all a single species of prey animal and that animal's predators were enemies--though even then, there are times when a predator can choose not to eat a prey animal--but with Redwall, not only are some "good" animals omnivorous, they even eat other "good" animals. I'm thinking of badgers, which eat small mammals and are an especial threat to hedgehogs. This seems like a problem for your setup, Mr. Jacques!

[sovay]

but with Redwall, not only are some "good" animals omnivorous, they even eat other "good" animals. I'm thinking of badgers, which eat small mammals and are an especial threat to hedgehogs. This seems like a problem for your setup, Mr. Jacques!

Exactly! Like otters aren't just weasels with better press and waterproof guard hairs!

Jacques doesn't even try to tie Outcast to real-world animal behavior—I wouldn't have liked it, but I might have been able to rationalize it better if as Veil matured, he began to see his adopted community as food rather than friends. Instead, Jacques is very clear that he's just bad—lying, sneaking, ungrateful, malicious, always out for himself and delighting in his petty acts of meanness, and every time Veil's adoptive mother Bryony raises the possibility that Veil is acting out because the entire Abbey has been waiting for him to turn out evil since he was a tiny kit, some other character shoots it down by reminding her that vermin are vermin are vermin and eventually the text bears them out. Hence the ending which just sort of busted my trust in Jacques as a writer, where Veil sacrifices himself for Bryony and then the novel just decides he didn't mean it, he wouldn't have saved her if he knew what he was doing, so sad, he's better off dead, the world is better off without him. I haven't read this book in twenty-two years and I'm still angry with it. And there's nothing to be done about it, since the author is literally dead.

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, dear! Or maybe just as well to be released, maybe. It's been a long while, but I definitely remember them being kind of disturbing!

[sovay]

It's been a long while, but I definitely remember them being kind of disturbing!

The levels of on-the-page violence were definitely high, which in hindsight surprises me although at the time I didn't think much about it, and there was a prevailing tone of deep, weird time and a sort of adventure-story grotesque, which was a feature for me rather than a bug. Like, it is extraordinarily strange to find, in a children's book, a subterranean kingdom deep beneath the ruins of a plague-abandoned, earthquake-swallowed land, built on the labor of child slaves and presided over by a mad albino god-ruler who lives within an immense stalactite statue of himself, but that's the climactic setting of Mattimeo (1989). The only thing that differentiates the Kingdom of Malkariss from something like the eponymous decadent, subterranean realm of Fritz Leiber's "The Lords of Quarmall" (1964) is that Malkariss is a white polecat and does not really practice sorcery, although he certainly has a cult. That's so WTF, I can't hate it. But Outcast didn't even have WTF going for it.

[choco_frosh]

Aww, man, let's HOPE that doesn't come up next Saturday: I think Peter loves all of 'em! (Though he hasn't mentioned Outcasts, so it's just possible that he hasn't read it...)

Personally, I burnt out on Martin the Warrior's reducing EVERY hero to a single, whiny-then-gradually-redeems-himself-and-gets-less-whiny archetype; and even aside from the weird species-ism, that series just went on WAY too long.

[sovay]

Aww, man, let's HOPE that doesn't come up next Saturday: I think Peter loves all of 'em!

I'm not going to trash-talk a series your child loves to his face! I loved as many books as there were when I was Peter's age.

Personally, I burnt out on Martin the Warrior's reducing EVERY hero to a single, whiny-then-gradually-redeems-himself-and-gets-less-whiny archetype;

All I can remember about Martin the Warrior is that I was disappointed to have a second dramatic backstory for him, having been satisfied with his ordinary history in Mossflower (1988).

and even aside from the weird species-ism, that series just went on WAY too long.

I hadn't quite realized how many books there were until just now, when I went to double-check a publication date. There were more than a dozen after I stopped reading! I don't feel any desire to catch up.

[thornsilver]

Redwall books are soo racist to my adult self.

[sovay]

Redwall books are soo racist to my adult self.

I would definitely worry about that on re-read. Also everything I can remember of the dialects suggests some weird class stuff going on.

[heliopausa]

I haven't read any of those, but re: Wind in the Willows ferrets, someone has written - thirty or forty years ago, I think, a ferret-POV of the society and its divisions - Wild Wood by Jan Needle.
It's doesn't have the appeal of the original, but it does take a head-on tilt at the blithe arrogance of the Riverbankers, and their assumptions about the lives and characters of the Wild Wooders.

[sovay]

someone has written - thirty or forty years ago, I think, a ferret-POV of the society and its divisions - Wild Wood by Jan Needle.

I didn't know that existed! Thank you. I'll check it out.

[justice_turtle]

I apparently have one hell of a lot of feelings about Redwall, most of which probably belong in a post of my own, if I can process them, but man, these books were super important to me in my pre-teens, and yeah, the thing with Veil's fate really messed me up. I doubt I was particularly articulate about it -- it wasn't until several years later that I even encountered any narratives suggesting society might take some blame for a failed assimilation, let alone anything questioning the ideal of assimilating into mainstream society -- and I still have not met any ferrets or rats personally, though I hear good things about them, but... yeah. Very well put. :-(

[sovay]

I apparently have one hell of a lot of feelings about Redwall, most of which probably belong in a post of my own, if I can process them, but man, these books were super important to me in my pre-teens, and yeah, the thing with Veil's fate really messed me up.

I would be interested to read your post. The early books were very important to me; I think I must have found them when Mattimeo (1989) was new, because I was in elementary school and I can remember a space of a couple of years when there were only the three books and then Mariel of Redwall (1991) came out and all of a sudden the trilogy was an open-ended series. I drew pages on pages of searats. I had trouble with Jacques' eye dialect. I wondered about making desserts with damson jam. I was disappointed with the young weasel Klitch in Salamandastron (1992) being a charming, treacherous villain who eventually died for his troubles, which I guess should have been a warning sign. And I can't tell if I'd be able to read any of them again. I mean, I might or might not be able to hack the plot formulae or the characterizations, but emotionally, all the other reasons.

A woman at the music school where I took voice lessons in high school had a pet rat which used to ride around on the shoulder of her coat. I thought it was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. It was a silky, dusty grey and very friendly; it would sniff delicately at your fingers and then lick them in a sort of casually hopeful fashion, as if just asking for a friend. It had a lot of personality.

[landofnowhere]

I never made it that far into Redwall, but I had a friend (named Matthias!) who had pet ferrets and was a fan of the series. I wonder what he thought.

[sovay]

I never made it that far into Redwall, but I had a friend (named Matthias!)

That name confused me the first time I read Redwall, because I was used to the name Mattathias and "Matthias" looked like a persistent typo to me.

who had pet ferrets and was a fan of the series. I wonder what he thought.

I got nothing. (Although I imagine that if your name is Matthias and you were born in the right time bracket, Redwall was unavoidable.)

[starlady]

Outcast of Redwall is the one where the entire series jumped the shark. All the books after that descended into increasingly gormless, cash-grabbing self-parody, and I think it's directly connected to the failure of Jacques' moral imagination in this book.

That said, the seven books published before Outcast are great, and as an overarching series they hang together fairly well, even though they weren't planned that way.

[sovay]

All the books after that descended into increasingly gormless, cash-grabbing self-parody, and I think it's directly connected to the failure of Jacques' moral imagination in this book.

I am not entirely surprised to hear that, since some of those titles looked terrible, but I am sorry.

That said, the seven books published before Outcast are great, and as an overarching series they hang together fairly well, even though they weren't planned that way.

That's good to hear: since starting to think about the books again, I have been worried about re-reading them. What's the accidental series arc?

[elaiel]

Awww, that's so annoying. And my three little furry chaos avatars are certainly not evil! They're super friendly little girls. We're just teaching them to walk on a harness and lead abs they just love to grey out there and meet people.

[sovay]

And my three little furry chaos avatars are certainly not evil! They're super friendly little girls.

Pictures? I would love to meet your chaos avatars.

[skygiants]

Outlaws of Redwall is the book that killed Redwall for me as well, and basically everyone else I've ever spoken to has said the same.

Also, a shout-out to the sad sidekick pirate rat in -- I think it's Joseph the Bellmaker? -- who is actually quite sweet and just wants to babysit the Redwall kids, but instead iirc self-exiles to become a hermit in the woods after helping to defeat the bad guy because Even Nice Rats Just Cannot Hang With The Good Species, It Is Known.

(Unrelatedly, I will take the opportunity to pose question I have asked many, many times and will continue to ask so long as Redwall Discourse exists on the internet: WHERE do the mice get their cream from? WHAT DO THEY MILK.)

[sovay]

Outlaws of Redwall is the book that killed Redwall for me as well, and basically everyone else I've ever spoken to has said the same.

I appreciate the data point. I don't think I've ever had other Redwall readers to compare notes with before. I was the only person in my friend group really reading the series by the time Outcast came out.

Also, a shout-out to the sad sidekick pirate rat in -- I think it's Joseph the Bellmaker? -- who is actually quite sweet and just wants to babysit the Redwall kids, but instead iirc self-exiles to become a hermit in the woods after helping to defeat the bad guy because Even Nice Rats Just Cannot Hang With The Good Species, It Is Known.

I would have said that I remembered nothing of the plot of The Bellmaker except for the villain with the palindromic name, but you're right! He discovers a talent for boatbuilding while living at the Abbey and the kids like him. I think technically he self-exiles to become a hermit by the shore, but your point is otherwise valid.

(Is this the same book with the nerd mole who spends all his time metaphorically digging through obscure manuscripts rather than actually digging through dirt?)

(Unrelatedly, I will take the opportunity to pose question I have asked many, many times and will continue to ask so long as Redwall Discourse exists on the internet: WHERE do the mice get their cream from? WHAT DO THEY MILK.)

They had cows in the first book and after that all options are either vegan or horrifying.

[osprey_archer]

Oh man, this book creeped me out. I don't think I was quite as invested in the series as you were, emotionally speaking, so I didn't find it quite as scarring, but there was definitely a bug-eyed moment of "Wait, THAT'S the takeaway you want for your readers? Some species are just evil?"

I thought surely it would walk it back at the end, at least a little bit, but then there's that scene where Bryony who has been Veil's champion and also the moral center of the book is like "Well I guess he was just born bad" and we're clearly supposed to think that she's Seen the Light.

It's especially weird because IIRC there are a few good cats in other books - Gingivere in Mossflower, I think? - so clearly some species are capable of moral choice/complexity in the world of Redwall. Just not ferrets, apparently.

[sovay]

I thought surely it would walk it back at the end, at least a little bit, but then there's that scene where Bryony who has been Veil's champion and also the moral center of the book is like "Well I guess he was just born bad" and we're clearly supposed to think that she's Seen the Light.

Right! What was that? What kind of moral was that? Brian Jacques, I know you're dead, but what the hell!

It's especially weird because IIRC there are a few good cats in other books - Gingivere in Mossflower, I think? - so clearly some species are capable of moral choice/complexity in the world of Redwall. Just not ferrets, apparently.

Both Gingivere in Mossflower and his presumed descendant (although it's a little unclear, what with one book taking place in our world and the other . . . not) Squire Gingivere in Redwall are good guys. I also feel like there's at least one non-evil fox. So there is really no reason not to have morally complex ferrets.

[teenybuffalo]

Entire agreement on how Veil gets screwed over by his own author.

For what it's worth, I found that Redwall stood up really well to an adult re-read recently, because it never gives you the leisure to consider that the rat horde are people too. The plot moves fast, and it's a really well-fought siege on everybody's part, so you only get to see the rats, ferrets, etc., in the context of their being this specific group of villains who have shown up to kill our heroes. I find that easier to accept without its being a sweeping judgement on all rat-ness. Then too, it's the first book, so the characters aren't doing the jaded thing where it's OK to kill rats on sight for the hell of it; we-the-mice aren't that self-righteous and bloodthirsty yet.

It also has the sparrows, who are hostile and scary to mice but who aren't set up as intrinsically evil, I recall. And from the other direction, Squire Gingivere is a lovely guy, but he's still a cat. I can accept "mice need to be afraid of everyone except other mice, until trustworthiness is proven" more easily than I can live with "mice are genetically good, vermin are genetically bad."

Then again, the foxes are chock-full of Romany stereotypes -- I think the mom fox even gets referred to as "that Gypsy" at some point -- so it's not like Redwall is free of weird animal-surrogate racism, it just goes in a different direction.

I want to reread Mattimeo now. Damn that was such a good adventure.

[sovay]

Entire agreement on how Veil gets screwed over by his own author.

Thank you.

The plot moves fast, and it's a really well-fought siege on everybody's part, so you only get to see the rats, ferrets, etc., in the context of their being this specific group of villains who have shown up to kill our heroes. I find that easier to accept without its being a sweeping judgement on all rat-ness.

That makes sense, and is good to know.

It also has the sparrows, who are hostile and scary to mice but who aren't set up as intrinsically evil, I recall. And from the other direction, Squire Gingivere is a lovely guy, but he's still a cat. I can accept "mice need to be afraid of everyone except other mice, until trustworthiness is proven" more easily than I can live with "mice are genetically good, vermin are genetically bad."

Redwall actually takes place in our universe, which means it's perfectly reasonable for mice to worry about being eaten by even friendly predators! I wonder if retconning the books into a secondary world accelerated some of the species/race issues: without an actual ecosystem to drive their behavior, what would be the big deal about rodents and small carnivorous mammals living together (I don't know what the vermin of Redwall eat, but it really doesn't seem to be mice), except that it's anathema according to Jacques?

Then again, the foxes are chock-full of Romany stereotypes -- I think the mom fox even gets referred to as "that Gypsy" at some point -- so it's not like Redwall is free of weird animal-surrogate racism, it just goes in a different direction.

I remember when I finally figured out that Killconey the ferret was supposed to be Irish. I was not good with written accents as a child.

I want to reread Mattimeo now. Damn that was such a good adventure.

Everything I can remember about Mattimeo is gonzo. I don't mean it as a bad thing.

[kore]

Ferrets are adorable! We used to visit friends who had them and they (ferrets not the friends) would always snuggle in my lap and radiate heat. They would also sneak up T's pantleg, try to go up it, and then hang out in his boot. They are indeed charming and clever, sleek and lovely.

Also saw this and thought of you https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/obituaries/danielle-darrieux-french-film-star-is-dead-at-100.html

[sovay]

They would also sneak up T's pantleg, try to go up it, and then hang out in his boot. They are indeed charming and clever, sleek and lovely.

Aw. The ones I knew in high school were also very snuggly. Autolycus reminds me of them when he burrows under my arm.

Also saw this and thought of you

Thank you. I saw this morning. I always associate her with 5 Fingers (1952), where she and James Mason are a wonderfully unscrupulous wartime bad romance.