Other Heroes

Other Heroes

Someone who noticed my ramblings about heroes reminded me of heroes who aren’t people. By that they didn’t mean our heroes who are fictional. After all I did write about the boy who lived on and on for seven books. (Side Note #1: To be honest J.K. Rowling is one of my favorite authors. I find her books to be one of my great secrete pleasures. After all in the beginning the books that she wrote were supposed to be aimed at children. For an adult to be caught with one, required quick thinking. Usually we claimed that we were reading the books to our children or grandchildren. Some of us even had to create imaginary neighborhood children who we were entertaining with our reading skills.

 Then as the books gained in popularity those of us who had been reading them in the closet could come out and proudly show our copies to the world. Of course it helped that the books were so well written that movie studios clamored to produce film versions. Since this is a side note I won’t go into whether the scene where the Weasley house was blown up was necessary or why the screen writers felt it necessary to have the boy hero suddenly decided to physically assault the evil villain in the last movie. Those issues have been dealt with well enough in the many blogs about the lead character. My particular love of the books is due to Ms. Rowling’s ability to write a chapter so well that I truly feel as if I’m inside of the room or place that she is writing about. I can sense the fires burning in the large fireplaces that warm the rooms. In fact I often find myself standing with my back to the fire to warm myself while the characters are acting out a scene in front on me.

There are a few other authors who can do that for me. Rick Riordan, who writes books on young heroes who are descended from Greek or Roman gods, is able to occasionally evoke the same powerful scenes that Ms. Rowling fills her books with. And no, before those of you eagle eyed readers detect a pattern; I also get the same feeling from so called adult books. Perhaps the first time that I realized that I was in a book and not merely reading the words was while reading “Moby Dick” for the first time. Herman Melville’s description of the chowders in the beginning of the book left me hungry for days. To this day memories of that part of the book can cause me to salivate. The funny thing is that before reading that scene I don’t believe that I’d ever had chowder.  A lacking that I have since corrected.

James Patterson writes a series of books about a character named Alex Cross. His descriptions are so vivid that I have been forced to stop reading the books because I can’t stand being there while such brutal killings are carried out.  I admire the skill he possess but have found it intolerable to carry myself into his worlds

At this point I believe that some of you may detect a secret desire of mine. I would someday like to be able to craft scenes, such as those that Ms. Rowling so easily places her characters in, that can carry readers into the places that I can see in my mind.)

I believe that they are speaking about our heroes who are from the animal world. (Side Note #2: In case you missed it, side note #1 ended at the close of the previous parentheses with the words “in my mind.”) We have the “Old Yellers” and “Rin Tin Tins” who proved over and over that dogs really are man’s best friend. (Side Note #3: I am deliberately leaving out Lassie. I mean just how many times can we believe that Timmy has fallen into the well? And why didn’t Timmy’s father cover over that well after the first few times that Timmy fell in?) There have been characters of a feline nature who have been companions that prove helpful. (Side Note #4: Of course anyone who has been adopted by a cat knows that such instances of helpfulness are totally at the convenience of the cat. A) Cats do not do what they are told, and B) They certainly don’t do it when told to.) There have been characters who are dolphins and even birds who have shown heroic tendencies. (Side Note #5: There may be some question here as to whether Ms. Rowling actually used birds as heroes in her books. The boy has a loyal owl who stays with him throughout most of the books but in that case the owl is really more of a companion than a hero. She does have a phoenix named Fawkes who saves the boy in book two. That was certainly heroic, but the question arises “Is there really a bird such as a phoenix, or perhaps better asked “Is the phoenix really a bird?)

Added all together I apologize to our heroic friends in the animal world for having forgotten them when I last spoke of heroes. To the Bullwinkles of the world thank you for your heroic service to those of us who continually get trapped in the flooding basement by the villains of the world.