Brian Jacques

[Riothamus]

I don't remember "Asmodeus" in the Bible--I was under the impression he was a Muslim invention. Reference?

[Steltek]

I believe the name "Asmodeus" is from the Catholic Apocrypha, not the canon shared by both Catholics and Protestants.

[Riothamus]

Ah. That makes sense. Reference? (I hope the continued inquiry doesn't sound aggressive; I just want to see where exactly it is, contextually et cetera.)

[Child of Immanuel]

Yes, and despite 'no religion', there are several instances of prayers to nature. Interesting. For another matter, what exactly does the Abbey worship? Peace? Why not call it a commune then?

[Riothamus]

Exactly. My thought was that Jacques originally intended one book-- Redwall--and so gave us the standard middle-ages type world, including religion (and the Messiah subplot, which seems too close to be accidental.) But when it got to be a hit, and he wrote sequels, he began to move it away from explicit religion, towards a more nature-based religion. Perhaps he thought it would be too hard to walk the tightrope he walked in Redwall over several books. Thus, in Mattimeo we have prayers for everything, all nature- or cycle-based, and phrases like "By the fur," again, nature-worship. [And I don't mean by all this that Redwall was originally Christian in the sense that Jacques meant it to be so; it was Christian (mildly,) in terms of mileu.]

On this reading, the Abbey would pretty much be a leftover from a time when the books were more ambiguously Christian.

[amodman]

Ah, Redwall, yes. I haven't read those in a long time. I've been trying to put more of the 'must-read' more serious books under my belt if ya know what I mean. I have a friend who's almost 19 and Redwall is almost all he reads...but enough of that. Martin the Warrior was the first one I ever read, that one stayed my favorite I think. Redwall and some others are definitely 'classics' of the series, but there seem to be a number of the books that just had a drull feeling to them.

[dinadan]

I haven't read any of Brian Jacques' books, but I was just reading through this thread and thought I'd toss out that abbeys/monasteries aren't peculiar to Christianity. The presence of one doesn't necessarily imply a Christian ambiance.

[earenor]

In my opinion the redwall series should have ended after Taggurung. And Brian Jacques most masterful piece was the Perls of Lutra; second would have to be Redwall tied with Mossflower. But I have always been partial to the otters and badgers.

[CynanMachae]

Earenor said:

In my opinion the redwall series should have ended after Taggurung. And Brian Jacques most masterful piece was the Perls of Lutra; second would have to be Redwall tied with Mossflower. But I have always been partial to the otters and badgers.

well, you can forget that, Earenor. I read on his website that he is gonna write these till he croaks...

[Riothamus]

dinadan said:

I haven't read any of Brian Jacques' books, but I was just reading through this thread and thought I'd toss out that abbeys/monasteries aren't peculiar to Christianity. The presence of one doesn't necessarily imply a Christian ambiance.

True, but they are associated with the whole middle-ages mileu, which is very much the direction Jacques is coming from, so that in some sense the presence of a pale kind of Christianity, at least in the beginning, is almost unavoidable.