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This Is Pretty Pointless
Feb. 7th, 2011 10:05 pmRedwall Author Brian Jacques Dies at 71
I saw this news making the rounds this morning, and it's made me surprisingly sad. I mean, everyone has that gateway book, right, the one you read at just the right moment when you are ten or twelve or fifteen or whatever that makes you realize that sci fi and fantasy is what you've been missing in your life. And the Redwall books were that for a lot of people, a lot of people I know even, but they weren't that for me. I only ever read one Brian Jacques book, and I don't remember anything that happened in it, so I guess it didn't make much of an impression.
But. One day in middle school this boy I had never spoken to before sat down on a bench next to me in the courtyard, took out a Redwall book, and started reading poetry to me. Odd, right? But strangely sweet. Nothing came of it - I told him it was pretty poetry, and then the bell rang and we left. I didn't become friends with him, I don't think we ever even talked again. But it's still one of the very few good memories that I have from that time, when I was mostly desperately unhappy. It's hard for me not to think fondly of Redwall, and of Brian Jacques, after that.
I saw this news making the rounds this morning, and it's made me surprisingly sad. I mean, everyone has that gateway book, right, the one you read at just the right moment when you are ten or twelve or fifteen or whatever that makes you realize that sci fi and fantasy is what you've been missing in your life. And the Redwall books were that for a lot of people, a lot of people I know even, but they weren't that for me. I only ever read one Brian Jacques book, and I don't remember anything that happened in it, so I guess it didn't make much of an impression.
But. One day in middle school this boy I had never spoken to before sat down on a bench next to me in the courtyard, took out a Redwall book, and started reading poetry to me. Odd, right? But strangely sweet. Nothing came of it - I told him it was pretty poetry, and then the bell rang and we left. I didn't become friends with him, I don't think we ever even talked again. But it's still one of the very few good memories that I have from that time, when I was mostly desperately unhappy. It's hard for me not to think fondly of Redwall, and of Brian Jacques, after that.