sovay | Apologies like the birds in the sky

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...

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?)

Edited 2017-10-18 18:08 (UTC)

Startide Rising (1983).

Also, it's dodgy because you know the Dolphin/Orca hybrids are BAD because they have darker skin markings... which in the context of US racism is !!!!

I totally appreciate ferrets! Amazing creatures! :o)

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.

Edited 2017-10-18 20:09 (UTC)

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!

Edited 2017-10-18 11:27 (UTC)

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.

Yeah, that's just chilling and awful. I can't imagine what he was thinking. Was he blind to what he was doing? HOW? If not, how on earth did he justify it? What a sad, depressing, alienating story :(

What a sad, depressing, alienating story

It does make me wonder if part of the reason I loved Moonrise (1948) so much was that it's the same kind of story, but done right this time, knowing there's no such thing as a child born to be bad.

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!

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.

I certainly remember violence, much more than the batshit stuff which I would have thought would have appealed otherwise; I must have found it too off-putting back in the day. I don't know if I got as far as Mattimeo before my patience ran out or not - they came along a little late for me and soon got very samey. But I was never really into that kind of talking animal thing, really. (I mean, where they wear clothes and have their own societies - they all seem pretty disturbing one way or another and I swore off them all after Redwall and Robin Jarvis. If humans meet a animal that happens to talk, that's fine, of course.)

(I mean, where they wear clothes and have their own societies - they all seem pretty disturbing one way or another and I swore off them all after Redwall and Robin Jarvis. If humans meet a animal that happens to talk, that's fine, of course.)

I have not read Robin Jarvis—I assume it is the same kind of anthropomorphism as opposed to the Richard Adams animals-that-live-like-animals model? The thing that was weirdest for me about Redwall was the way the first book clearly took place in the interstices and hedgerows of our own world, with carts and horses and barn cats and so forth, and then by Mossflower we are clearly in some secondary world populated almost strictly by small mammals and birds. Even in elementary school, I noticed the switch.

Oh, no, they all go in the same boat of nightmare fuel regardless. I blame Beatrix Potter and the (stop-motion) animated Wind of the Willows in early childhood (those weasels were terrifying!), but Watership Down, Redwall, all of them. I have more respect for Richard Adams than something like Redwall, of course, but they still quickly parse as horror to me. I don't think Robin Jarvis's Deptford Mice etc. were clothes-wearers, I think they lived like animals in between human worlds, but they were the last straw in my late teens/early twenties, because they actually were low-level teen horror with rats and mice and at that point I decided No More, No More. :lol:

(I do make an exception for Mrs Frisby. Not that there's not still nightmare fuel in that, too. What is it with authors, furry animals, and terrifying children??)

Your talk of children's books with suprising levels of both violence and WTF makes me wonder if you've ever read The Borribles Trilogy? I loved it to death when I was younger, but haven't reread in decades, so it may well have been visited by the suck fairy...

Along slightly different lines, I commend this book review to you. The book itself turned out to be more violemt than is to my taste, sadly...

Your talk of children's books with suprising levels of both violence and WTF makes me wonder if you've ever read The Borribles Trilogy?

Yes, although not since I discovered them in college. My memories from that time, however, suggest that the books do not suck.

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.

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.

Redwall books are soo racist to my adult self.

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.

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.

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.

I was going to recommend it to you too! I read it for the first time last week; it's very very good and I wonder if it was also influenced a bit by Animal Farm.

The author also wrote a book on Brecht?

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. :-(

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.

Edited 2017-10-18 21:55 (UTC)

I think you and I encountered them around the same time and the same age, because the titles you list sound familiar to me even though I remember bugger-all about the plots. And I think we stopped around the same point, too.

I can't decide if morbid curiosity is enough to lure me into taking another look at the early ones.

I think you and I encountered them around the same time and the same age, because the titles you list sound familiar to me even though I remember bugger-all about the plots. And I think we stopped around the same point, too.

I seem to have the strongest memories of Mossflower, Mattimeo, and Outcast. I remember liking Mariel—it was all high seas and swashbuckling and our heroine renaming herself Storm Gullwhacker, which I still think is a pretty great epithet for a mouse, also I believe at one point there was a fight with a lobster. I retain almost nothing of Martin the Warrior or The Bellmaker.

I can't decide if morbid curiosity is enough to lure me into taking another look at the early ones.

The more I think about Mattimeo, the more it resembles an H. Rider Haggard novel with a lot of mice in. In addition to the abovementioned subterranean kingdom, there's a pine forest inhabited by some unknown species of small animal that paint themselves for camouflage with green and black vegetable dyes and prey on travelers, whom they catch with nooses and pierce with wooden lances and hang their bones from the branches as trophies. (I realize now that this scared me in the same way as the line from the ballad "Anathea": there among the green pines standing / you will find your brother hanging.) They don't speak any known language and they're afraid of fire. Seriously, what was this book?

I remember the name Storm Gullwhacker! Couldn't have produced it on command, though.

I think the only one I still have on my shelf is Mossflower. It was always my favorite, not that this means it has stuck in my memory very well.

Seriously, what was this book?

. . . I have no idea. Pretty sure I read it, but that sounds rather out of whack.

It was always my favorite, not that this means it has stuck in my memory very well.

I remember Mossflower being my favorite of the original three, although the weird bits of Mattimeo appear to have gone into permanent storage.

Aren't the small animals the Guosim (Guerilla Union of Shrews in Mossflower)? I seem to recall they have a very strong line in being scary and mysterious and frightening passers-by, and they're the kind of creatures who would wear skulls for helmets and make their own survivalist camoflage.

The Redwall wiki tells me that they're a loving parody of the Liverpool longshoremen's union. Apart from anything else, I guess now we know how their accents sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIQ7rhW655Y

(not to post mystery links, this is Louisa Jo Killen singing "Bonny Bunch of Roses-O.")

Aren't the small animals the Guosim (Guerilla Union of Shrews in Mossflower)? I seem to recall they have a very strong line in being scary and mysterious and frightening passers-by, and they're the kind of creatures who would wear skulls for helmets and make their own survivalist camoflage.

No, these are encountered by Matthias and company well into their southward pursuit of Slagar and the kidnapped children of Redwall—they have already met up with the Guosim by then. I don't think the text ever identifies them as anything other than "the painted ones." They kill several shrews and almost steal a young otter before our heroes get away from them; Slagar's party suffered similar losses when it passed through the same dark pines. They do not reappear in any of the books I read, although that doesn't preclude Jacques re-using them in a later novel, probably less effectively. In elementary school, because of the bones, I think partly because there never is a real explanation of who or even what they are, they bothered me.

The Redwall wiki tells me that they're a loving parody of the Liverpool longshoremen's union.

Well, I did not pick up on that as a child.

(not to post mystery links, this is Louisa Jo Killen singing "Bonny Bunch of Roses-O.")

Louisa Killen is always welcome in comments.

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.

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.)

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.

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?

Edited 2017-10-18 22:03 (UTC)

Agree entirely that Outcast is where the series jumped the shark.

I have been told that if you stay with the series long enough there is unfortunately a hare named Stiffener Medick. A glance at the Redwall wiki has shown me that this is true, with no detectable irony.

http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Stiffener_Medick

Look at what you were spared by dropping the series after Outcast of Redwall.

Agree entirely that Outcast is where the series jumped the shark.

I am finding this entire thread curiously validating.

a hare named Stiffener Medick. A glance at the Redwall wiki has shown me that this is true, with no detectable irony.

He definitely got worse with names.

The first seven books kind of coalesce around Martin the Warrior and the bells of Redwall, with Salamandastron kind of thrown in.

The first seven books kind of coalesce around Martin the Warrior and the bells of Redwall, with Salamandastron kind of thrown in.

Neat. I can see that being satisfying, if you know where to stop.

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.

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.

Edited 2017-10-18 23:42 (UTC)

I've got some pics, but will have to find my log in for my pic sharing site so I can post them!

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.)

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.

WTF RATS ARE DARLING. /had a pet rat that sat on my shoulder as a kid

/had a pet rat that sat on my shoulder as a kid

I didn't know that! I love that shoulder-sitting is just a thing rats do.

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.

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.

Maybe a ferret once bit Brian Jacques and he never got over it?

Maybe a ferret once bit Brian Jacques and he never got over it?

A dog tried to eat me when I was a toddler! I don't write versions of Cujo!

How'd you get out of that one?

How'd you get out of that one?

My father shoved his arm between its jaws like Tyr with Fenris and my mother grabbed me and ran with me into the bathroom and locked the door. It was the dog of a close family friend, nobody knew it was ill, it saw year-and-a-half-old me running around its living room and all of a sudden, instead of the pocket edition of a human, it saw prey. I believe it was a German Shepherd. It actually got my head in its jaws, although did not follow through with the crushing part due to my father making like a Norse god and its owner physically flinging himself on top of the dog a few seconds later. I have almost no memory of these events; I was in high school when a friend's Dalmatian nipped me and I burst into convulsive tears which were all the more terrifying because I didn't feel any emotional upset in the moment, certainly no fear of Perdy herself, but I couldn't stop crying. My friend's older brother handed me boxes of Kleenex through the door of the bathroom. I was rattled enough when I got home that I described the incident to my parents and they told me the story of the dog that tried to eat me when I was a toddler. I was amazed because I had previously thought that sort of buried response was an invention of fiction. And that is how I learned that triggers are real.

Holy fucking smokes, YIKES. OK, that's heroic origin story level.

I can believe that buried responses to very early trauma works just like that, but if it were happening to me I would probably also have a moment of "that sort of thing only happens in books" initial hesitation. It's different when you're learning something previously unknown about your own experiences.

Not to be a me-too terrifying dog story, but there was a moment when I was six and chased by two He's A Nice Dog, Just Being Friendly big mean dogs, and my mother stood between me and them and clubbed the leading dog on the head with a pocketbook full of quarters. Amazing what parents can do when they are pressed.

Holy fucking smokes, YIKES. OK, that's heroic origin story level.

It is kind of dramatic.

It's different when you're learning something previously unknown about your own experiences.

Exactly. Plus a lot of reactions which are normal for other people are not normal for me, so I never know where my emotional responses are going to fall—maybe it happens in books for other people, but not for me.

Not to be a me-too terrifying dog story, but there was a moment when I was six and chased by two He's A Nice Dog, Just Being Friendly big mean dogs, and my mother stood between me and them and clubbed the leading dog on the head with a pocketbook full of quarters.

That is an excellent moment of parental heroism.

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.

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.

Edited 2017-10-19 03:38 (UTC)

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

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.

Apologies like the birds in the sky

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject