I’ve had absolutely no time to write. Despite this, I’ve been promising people I will write, in a gaming blog and a university-related computer science blog. I’ll post the links here when those start.
Otherwise, I’ve been swamped with coursework. For each of my 5 classes I have a project, and then I have an additional year-long project that isn’t associated with a class. They include a “smart” pac-man maze solver, an Android game that has elements in the real world, a visual Facebook-related Android app, and a few more that are both code-based and writing-based. In a lot of cases, the report is worth more than the actual code.
During my free time (or to be honest, my “procrastination time,” as I have no free time), I was browsing the web and remembered one of my favorite authors as a kid, Brian Jacques. I hadn’t visited his website in a while, so I searched for his name and clicked the first link. The first thing that came to mind was that the website’s look had completely changed. The second thing was a link at the top that caught my eye. “Obituaries.” He had passed away in February, and I hadn’t known. None of the people I know read his books, so I guess that’s understandable. But the world has lost a great storyteller. I thought I would blog a little to honor his writing.
If you know nothing about his work, I’ll give a little explanation of the style of his writing. After years of odd jobs including being a merchant sailor and a milkman, he began writing. His main work, the Redwall series, was started for the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind. His writing is very descriptive, in order for people without sight to be able to imagine the story as richly as possible. The Redwall series is based around Redwall Abbey and its inhabitants, a collection of small animals that one would expect to find in a forest. Mice, squirrels, moles, rabbits, and birds are just a few of them. Jacques has given a specific accent or way of speaking to every one of these animals, which is written out in the text, and gives them much more personality. Given the descriptive element, the feasts they have at the abbey always sound marvelous. The stories are classic “good versus evil” themes, the villains usually “vermin” like rats, ferrets, foxes, and sometimes even cats. Sometimes the hero is taken away from the abbey by force, sometimes they set out for adventure, but they always end up saving the day valiantly. Don’t let the anthropomorphism scare you away; the writing and his world of Mossflower is rich and beautiful. They’re brilliant tales.
Jacques has written one novel in this series nearly every single year since 1986, when Redwall was published. He also has other series, including Castaways of the Flying Dutchman, which was also a great read. I’ve read many of the Redwall books, but not all. I expect they’d still be just as enjoyable as they were when I was a kid, so I want to make a point to read all the ones I’ve missed. If you’re looking for a good old-fashioned heroic story, pick up Redwall, and appreciate the late Jacques’ writing.
It's always sad when a great writer passes away. My mom read Redwall to me when I was very young. I really enjoyed it, and always wanted to read the others, but never got around to it. Maybe I will one of these days.
They're all just as great! I remember my parents reading The Legend of Luke to me before bed. I don't remember understanding a lot of what went on, but I did enjoy it 😛 I should read it again sometime.
I totally read Redwall back in the day. I think I read, like, the first six or seven books in the series. So now you can say, “At least one person I know read his books.”
It's weird. I had a similar experience recently where the name Brian Jacques popped in my head, so I googled him. It's sad he's gone. I think he has some influence on my desire to become a writer.
Andrew, I think I agree. He certainly inspired or continued my love of creative, descriptive writing. Glad to know someone else feels like I do! 🙂