![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A few years ago, when Occupy was doing their thing and their grievances and agenda were in the news, I had this thought:
These are clever, resourceful, idealistic, fit young people in their prime, who evidently don't mind a bit of discomfort to prove a point. If they want to reject the system, why don't they pool their resources, launch a Kickstarter to cover the shortfall, buy some big property somewhere in the back of beyond, and start a self-sufficient cashless community independent of corporations and unfair government?
Then I realised the utopia I was imagining was essentially Redwall.
Before Harry Potter had crested the horizon, Redwall was my obsession. It went beyond an obsession, in fact; at a time when I was a fish miles from water, struggling in an unfriendly school, and otherwise alienated from everyday reality, the Redwall books were my refuge and salvation. I read them over and over, read almost nothing else aside from the books assigned in class, and more or less looked out at the world through Redwall's windows. They gave me somewhere to go that wasn't my own head, and I don't know where I'd be today if I hadn't had that.
Most of my childhood was spent in places that could not have been further, visually, from the verdant pastoral quasi-medieval world described in the books, so when I moved to the UK I decided I needed to reread them, now I've become more familiar with the architecture and biome described. I was also curious to find out how my perspective on them might have changed in the fifteen years or so since I cracked one open. I can't say I was necessarily expecting anything, but it was curious what I noticed ...
( Having just finished 'Redwall' ... )
Sadly the re-reading experience was not as blissful a trip down memory lane as I was kind of hoping it would be ... Redwall itself is a tricky book because the author doesn't really find his groove until a third of the way through, and the worldbuilding that gives the other books in the series such a nice integrity is still a little shaky in this one – it's the only book with any suggestion of a human presence, the relative sizes of the animals are all over the place, and the history of Mossflower Country is a great big unknown. The adventure was grand and it was still pleasingly cinematic (and the set designer has improved a lot since I was 13), but I've been spoiled by an education in screenwriting and more grownup literature that has ideas and stuff in it; Redwall is sweet in its simplicity but it does kind of make me want more out of aspects of the story and characters which are probably not intended for that purpose. I am all in favour of just enjoying a good yarn sometimes so I will let it be, but it did slightly diminish my enjoyment of it on an adult level. But mainly, I think, it's that I don't really need it anymore – I no longer need to hide from the world, in fact I quite enjoy the world I'm living in now, not least because I can get to Mossflower Woods on the Tube.
I have a copy of Mossflower waiting for me, which I'm looking forward to because it's got Martin the Warrior in it and he's a good 'un, but I don't know when I'll get to it because I've got a giant stack of homework that I'm about to get started on ... It'll be good to visit for brain candy on a dark winter night, though. Boy am I ever excited for it to be winter again.
These are clever, resourceful, idealistic, fit young people in their prime, who evidently don't mind a bit of discomfort to prove a point. If they want to reject the system, why don't they pool their resources, launch a Kickstarter to cover the shortfall, buy some big property somewhere in the back of beyond, and start a self-sufficient cashless community independent of corporations and unfair government?
Then I realised the utopia I was imagining was essentially Redwall.
Before Harry Potter had crested the horizon, Redwall was my obsession. It went beyond an obsession, in fact; at a time when I was a fish miles from water, struggling in an unfriendly school, and otherwise alienated from everyday reality, the Redwall books were my refuge and salvation. I read them over and over, read almost nothing else aside from the books assigned in class, and more or less looked out at the world through Redwall's windows. They gave me somewhere to go that wasn't my own head, and I don't know where I'd be today if I hadn't had that.
Most of my childhood was spent in places that could not have been further, visually, from the verdant pastoral quasi-medieval world described in the books, so when I moved to the UK I decided I needed to reread them, now I've become more familiar with the architecture and biome described. I was also curious to find out how my perspective on them might have changed in the fifteen years or so since I cracked one open. I can't say I was necessarily expecting anything, but it was curious what I noticed ...
( Having just finished 'Redwall' ... )
Sadly the re-reading experience was not as blissful a trip down memory lane as I was kind of hoping it would be ... Redwall itself is a tricky book because the author doesn't really find his groove until a third of the way through, and the worldbuilding that gives the other books in the series such a nice integrity is still a little shaky in this one – it's the only book with any suggestion of a human presence, the relative sizes of the animals are all over the place, and the history of Mossflower Country is a great big unknown. The adventure was grand and it was still pleasingly cinematic (and the set designer has improved a lot since I was 13), but I've been spoiled by an education in screenwriting and more grownup literature that has ideas and stuff in it; Redwall is sweet in its simplicity but it does kind of make me want more out of aspects of the story and characters which are probably not intended for that purpose. I am all in favour of just enjoying a good yarn sometimes so I will let it be, but it did slightly diminish my enjoyment of it on an adult level. But mainly, I think, it's that I don't really need it anymore – I no longer need to hide from the world, in fact I quite enjoy the world I'm living in now, not least because I can get to Mossflower Woods on the Tube.
I have a copy of Mossflower waiting for me, which I'm looking forward to because it's got Martin the Warrior in it and he's a good 'un, but I don't know when I'll get to it because I've got a giant stack of homework that I'm about to get started on ... It'll be good to visit for brain candy on a dark winter night, though. Boy am I ever excited for it to be winter again.
