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language: English
country: UK
year: 1986
form: novel
genre(s): fantasy
dates read: 28.5.24-6.6.24
just realized I forgot to write my review of Redwall. the full-cast audiobook is incredible — all other things aside I think it’s worth a listen just as a performance. the overall narrative — in a world of sentient animals, the peaceful mice (mostly) of the curiously nondenominational Redwall Abbey are besieged by the rat warlord Cluny the Scourge and his army — is engaging, although it’s also quite slow.
unfortunately, the book itself — as the rest of the series — has very bad racial politics. the “vermin” species (rats, weasels, stoats, ferrets, foxes) are all amoral at best if not actively and enthusiastically evil, and this is presented as an inherent and immutable characteristic. the one character whose speech is written as markedly Irish is a superstitious evil ferret. meanwhile, the “virtuous” woodlanders can do no wrong, up to and including when they torture a prisoner. heroes can do no wrong, as far as the narrative is concerned.
the part that maybe most irked me on rereading, though, is the portrayal of the shrews in the final section of the book: the Guerilla Union of Shrews in Mossflower (GUOSIM) operate on democratic principles (majority vote, in all cases we see) and maintain explicit and specific bylaws for running meetings as well as regulating their community and territory. this is presented as a bad thing: their meetings regularly devolve into physical altercations, and Matthias explicitly regards their rules of procedure as an impediment to his pursuit of Justice — and the narrative very clearly agrees with him. the GUOSIM read as a mean-spirited and reactionary parody of labor unions and left-wing political organizations. it’s bad.
moods: adventurous