Book Review: Triss by Brian Jacques
Aug. 1st, 2006 08:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaTitle: Triss
Author: Brian Jacques
Published: New York: Philomel Books (Penguin Putnam), 2002
Page Count: 389
Total Page Count: 24,313
Text Number: 71
Read For: my own enjoyment, checked out from the library
Short review: The fifteenth Redwall novel, Triss is the story of slaves, pirates, treasure, and riddles. Triss is an escaped slave from the north, hotly pursued by her captors and a Freebooter crew. Meanwhile, a young badger and a hare leave Salamadastron to begin an adventure on their own, and Redwallers discover clues leading them towards Brockhall, the badger home and safehouse from the days before Redwall. The three stories come together when Triss meets up with Sagax the badger and they are chased deep into Mossflower Wood. All of the usual aspects of the Redwall books are here—riddles, adventures, travel, battles, lots of food, as well as a variety of cultures and accents, yet in Triss they seem different: over-exaggerated in many places and unusual in others. Accents are almost comical, the emphasis on food is heavy-handed, and the riddles come in the form of a coded language. Furthermore, the diverse storylines in Triss remain independent almost all of the way through, and the text only feels united and complete in the last through chapters. Despite my love for the Redwall series, I wasn't impressed with this book. I found some characters annoying (a first for this series) and didn't find the plot very exciting. This was just a bad book for Jacques, and it's the first Redwall book I wouldn't recommend.
No doubt that the books in the Redwall series all operate in the same way: they all contain adventures, battles, cultures, accents, food, and riddles. Jacques makes each story unique, but those underlying aspects are almost always there. They are also present in Triss, but it feels like Jacques uses them in a different way in this text. Many of the aspects, food, accents, and riddles in particular, are exaggerated even to the point of being foolish or annoying. Others, the adventures in particular, are isolated from one another, split into too many concurrent plots that don't come together until the end. It seems to me that Jacques was trying to do soemthing new with this book: mix up old aspects, make something funny/more extreme, and approach the plot in a new way. I consider it a failed attempt. Triss doesn't read as smoothly as most Redwall books, and the food and accents actually make some of the characters annoying—something I've never seen before in the series.
That said, Triss isn't a bad book. Jacques is still a solid writer, and even while experimenting with new interpretations of his themes, he manages to write a good, exciting plot with a number of interesting and admirable characters (the warriors, and the protagonist specifically). The book still reads quickly, the sea travel in particular is well described, and journey towards Brockhall should excite longtime readers of the series who will remember it from Mossflower. I do wish that there had been more about Brockhall, however, beyond the final battle there, but I was happy to see it regardless.
Nonetheless, this is the first Redwall book that I wouldn't recommend. It's not a bad read, doesn't take much time, and is probably interesting to longtime Redwall readers. However, it's a poor example of a Redwall book and it feels like a failed experiment on Jacques' part. It's a book you can skip—nothing too important to the larger Redwall chronology occurs, the characters don't stand out, and you'll save yourself some aggravation by avoiding the annoying character that crop up. Unfortunate, but true. I don't recommend this book.
Review posted here at Amazon.com.
Author: Brian Jacques
Published: New York: Philomel Books (Penguin Putnam), 2002
Page Count: 389
Total Page Count: 24,313
Text Number: 71
Read For: my own enjoyment, checked out from the library
Short review: The fifteenth Redwall novel, Triss is the story of slaves, pirates, treasure, and riddles. Triss is an escaped slave from the north, hotly pursued by her captors and a Freebooter crew. Meanwhile, a young badger and a hare leave Salamadastron to begin an adventure on their own, and Redwallers discover clues leading them towards Brockhall, the badger home and safehouse from the days before Redwall. The three stories come together when Triss meets up with Sagax the badger and they are chased deep into Mossflower Wood. All of the usual aspects of the Redwall books are here—riddles, adventures, travel, battles, lots of food, as well as a variety of cultures and accents, yet in Triss they seem different: over-exaggerated in many places and unusual in others. Accents are almost comical, the emphasis on food is heavy-handed, and the riddles come in the form of a coded language. Furthermore, the diverse storylines in Triss remain independent almost all of the way through, and the text only feels united and complete in the last through chapters. Despite my love for the Redwall series, I wasn't impressed with this book. I found some characters annoying (a first for this series) and didn't find the plot very exciting. This was just a bad book for Jacques, and it's the first Redwall book I wouldn't recommend.
No doubt that the books in the Redwall series all operate in the same way: they all contain adventures, battles, cultures, accents, food, and riddles. Jacques makes each story unique, but those underlying aspects are almost always there. They are also present in Triss, but it feels like Jacques uses them in a different way in this text. Many of the aspects, food, accents, and riddles in particular, are exaggerated even to the point of being foolish or annoying. Others, the adventures in particular, are isolated from one another, split into too many concurrent plots that don't come together until the end. It seems to me that Jacques was trying to do soemthing new with this book: mix up old aspects, make something funny/more extreme, and approach the plot in a new way. I consider it a failed attempt. Triss doesn't read as smoothly as most Redwall books, and the food and accents actually make some of the characters annoying—something I've never seen before in the series.
That said, Triss isn't a bad book. Jacques is still a solid writer, and even while experimenting with new interpretations of his themes, he manages to write a good, exciting plot with a number of interesting and admirable characters (the warriors, and the protagonist specifically). The book still reads quickly, the sea travel in particular is well described, and journey towards Brockhall should excite longtime readers of the series who will remember it from Mossflower. I do wish that there had been more about Brockhall, however, beyond the final battle there, but I was happy to see it regardless.
Nonetheless, this is the first Redwall book that I wouldn't recommend. It's not a bad read, doesn't take much time, and is probably interesting to longtime Redwall readers. However, it's a poor example of a Redwall book and it feels like a failed experiment on Jacques' part. It's a book you can skip—nothing too important to the larger Redwall chronology occurs, the characters don't stand out, and you'll save yourself some aggravation by avoiding the annoying character that crop up. Unfortunate, but true. I don't recommend this book.
Review posted here at Amazon.com.
