GMD: Simple Pleasures

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For most of this morning, while at my grandma's house in Houston, I was busy coloring in this recent pencil sketch of one of my GMD (Great Mouse Detective) fanfiction characters, Amergin Burgess. Now, who is Amergin Burgess, you're probably wondering? Well, he's basically the little furry version of Anthony Burgess, the late, great, & VERY talented author of over dozens (if not hundreds) of poems, short stories, songs, scripts, plays, essays, & novels, including my personal favorite, "A Clockwork Orange".

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Born in a mouse-sized cottage in the lush green pastures on the outskirts of Kilarney, Ireland, on February 9, 1856, Amergin Burgess (who was bestowed with the Gaelic name meaning "born of song", which would become a very apt name for the lad in the years to come) spent much of his childhood growing up (as a Catholic) in an environment where many of the rodents he knew were lower-middle-class or poorer. Amergin's father (a successful cobbler who set up a shop for his growing business next to his family's house) & mother (a former journalist who quit the career when her son was born & stayed at home to help take of him) worked very hard to make sure that young Amergin, their only son, received all the care, love, & affection they could possibly give him under their humble roof; although Amergin's father was the only one of the two parents who still worked at a job & received any income, he was able to get enough money from his business to ensure that his family had enough to eat, lived in general comfort, & could afford a few luxuries every few days or so (with the exception of school, which Amergin's parents provided for their son at home).

Unfortunately, when Amergin was around 9, one of his father's employees at the cobbler shop began stealing money from the business & using it for his own selfish needs; eventually, the corrupt employee stole so much money that Amergin's father was no longer able to fund his cobbling business, & in late February of 1865, Mr. Burgess filed for bankruptcy & permanently closed his chain of cobbler shops, selling the buildings to businessmice in the hopes of gaining additional money from their purchases. After saving every penny from the shop sales he could, Amergin's father eventually was able to raise enough money—over 45,000 pounds—for himself & his family to pack up their possessions, hop aboard the next human's train to London, & settle in a small mouse house in the West End while he sought out another job.

Young Amergin's outlook on life & his personality gradually began to change throughout the course of the events that altered his existence as he knew it. Gone was the innocent, bright-eyed mouseling who watched his "wonderful" world with rose-tinted glasses & a pleasant smile; in his place, was a bitter, sullen, cynical boy who frowned constantly, looked on the dark & gloomy side of life, & learned to distrust others & their motives. Nowadays, instead of smiling & being happy all the time, Amergin was usually sad, angry, or something along those lines; he distanced himself from other fursons & avoided the temptation to grow too attached to rodents, for fear they would one day betray his friendship & turn on him, as his father's conniving ex-employee had done.

"You could say," Amergin would later tell famed journalist Nellie Brie in an 1895 interview for The Illustrated London Mouse, "that my string of rather unpleasant experiences that led to my family's migration from Kilarney to Mouse London was responsible for the development of the overwhelming majority—if not all—of my fursonality characteristics with which you all have probably become so accustomed & familiar by now." Indeed, it would be difficult for one to argue that any other events could have twisted & distorted Amergin's fursonality as drastically as the Burgess family tragedies of 1865. Even when his father & mother were re-hired for new (well-paying) jobs soon after their move to Mouse London & his life gradually returned to the way it was before, Amergin himself didn't.

Though the growing & overly-maturing lad became considerably less angry & smiled & laughed more often every day, it was a terse & embittered expression of "glee"; when the local girls & boys tried to befriend Amergin, he would usually ignore them & keep to himself, burying his nose in a book or pretending to play with a puzzle. Amergin remained cynical & continued to distrust other rodents; though he regained a bit of his childhood optimism & softened his pessimistic outlook (somewhat), his overall attitude remained far from sunny. Amergin believed that "blessings & happy endings & suchnot", though they did happen in life, were rare & infrequent occasions that did not usually last forever—& that was why Amergin always dreaded, in the back of his mind & the inner recesses of his dark soul, the possible day when the good life he & his family shared might come to a tragic end & all the blessings that returned to his existence might be taken away from him by a cruel twist of fate.

Fortunately for Amergin & his family, those fears never came to light, but even so, although he became a little more optimistic & a little less cynical as the years went by, Amergin still continued to maintain much of his prepubescent philosophy & was not entirely convinced that his "observations" had no basis in some kind of cold, hard truth. Because of their adolescent son's pursuit of (at least some of) his grim & dismal ideals, Mother & Father Burgess worried about "darling Amergin" & tried to think of a way for him to express the darkness of his soul in a safe & harmless manner. Getting an idea from remembering her days as a journalist long ago, Amergin's mother bought a diary & gave it to her son for his 13th birthday. "You may feel that life is a wretched gray Saturday," Mother Burgess told Amergin as she presented him with her gift, "but if you decide not to change your attitude, then here is a way for you to live through that Saturday & express those dark thoughts & feelings...with the power of the pen."

Amergin quickly took to the diary, & he always carried it with him wherever he went, whether it was on a hansom cab or at Regents Park (or any other place you could think of); whenever he wrote in it, he would jot down a variety of things. Sometimes, Amergin would write the conventional journal entries in it about what happened to him during the day; other times, when he felt a particular emotion, he would doodle pictures or write a few paragraphs to express his feelings. Still other times, Amergin would use the diary to write poems, short stories, songs, essays, scripts for mini-plays, & even ideas for novellas; Amergin's "penchant for penmouseship" was a talent he had discovered at the age of 11, but now, the boy really had a chance to develop & embellish upon his marvelous skills at poetry & prose.

At around the age of 14, Amergin Burgess began to pitch some of his stories, songs, plays, & other writings to magazines & newspapers, such as The Daily Brie & Rodentological Journal; the submitted writings that were accepted by the magazine / newspaper editors were subsequently published in the latest issues of the periodicals. Readers of Amergin's stories, poems, etc., quickly grew to love his creations, which were not only applauded & adored by rodents around the world, but also acclaimed by a wide number of critics, who praised Amergin for his beautiful use of words & "the elements of literary language", the compelling plots & characters of his novels, his "amazing ability" to keep readers "spellbound", & all sorts of numerous other things they found delightful with Burgess' works (although the critics occasionally complained about the dreary & dark—sometimes even disheartening—tone of many of Amergin's writings).

As he grew older & his fame & success in the world of literature became more & more prominent with each passing day, Amergin Burgess quickly became a full-fledged author of many talents, genres, styles, subjects, & fields; eventually, at the age of 19, Amergin earned enough money from the publication & purchases of his writings to be able to buy a new townhouse for himself in the North End of Mouse London, not too far away from his parents. To this day, Amergin continues to live in this townhouse, usually occupying his time in his study so that he can work on his ever-increasing amount of writing projects—including novels, short stories, plays, film & television scripts, essays, poems, songs, children's books, operas, philosophical texts, & many, many more...

Here, Amergin Burgess sits down with a cup of coffee in his paw, holding up one of his novels as he prepares to read it for his own fursonal pleasure.

Character Models / Based On: Anthony Burgess
Voice Actor: Sean Connery

All "Great Mouse Detective" elements & properties (C) Disney.
Amergin Burgess & all other original elements & properties (C) me. Please be sure to ask for my permission before using them.

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