Growing up, there were only two beagles--or Beagles--I knew of. One was the redoubtable Snoopy, lazing on his doghouse roof unless chasing the Red Baron in his Sopwith Camel or dancing riotously to jazzy Christmas classics on TV specials. The other was the HMS Beagle, on its five-year mission to explore strange new worlds and to seek out new life...wait, that is a different intro. Well, its five-year mission was to investigate new lands for scientific and mercantile reasons, so there you go.
Anyway, sometime during my adolescence, a new Beagle crossed my path. This was one Peter S. Beagle, known to me now as an author of fantasy fiction. Most notably The Last Unicorn,which is a cartoon suited for an audience of children in the same way that Watership Down is a cartoon suited for an audience of children. Meaning, not so much.
But Peter S. Beagle was to me in those days just a guy who wrote the introduction for my version of Fellowship of the Ring. Describing his search for the novel as its acclaim grew by word of mouth and a significant newpaper review by W.H. Auden, Beagle concluded his initial premise with a sentence I have remembered ever since. He termed J.R.R. Tolkien "the magus of my secret knowledge." Nice ring, that phrase has. Magus--magician or sorcerer or wise man--who speaks to my hidden heart.
Some things resonate with your passion---your identity--your authentic self--and shake you by the scruff of the neck.
* * * * * * * * * *
Back during the 2010s, ABC Family ran a Harry Potter Weekend from time to time. All eight films run over the course of several days. These days, there is no ABC Family channel, and the time committment of watching 8 movies consecutively just isn't going to float, but Harry Potter films still pop up occasionally thanks to HBO or Peacock or even the DVDs I have shelved next to my Band of Brothers box set.
So it was that I slipped into cueing up a couple of Harry Potter movies last month. Mainly as comfortable familiar background filler, creating atmosphere for the backdrop of my weekend. Just drifting into and out of the living room, carrying groceries to the kitchen or laundry to the bedroom, not really paying attention.
Shaken by the scruff of the neck? That is an apt description of how I was stopped in my tracks just a few minutes in. As Robbie Coltrane in the role of his life as Hagrid, having flattened a door in a lonely lighthouse, tracks down just-turned-eleven-years-old Harry to present him a slightly damaged birthday cake and intone, arched eyebrows and all:
"Yer a wizard, Harry."
I've heard this line, watched this scene, read this passage in the book more times than I can count. So why did I stop where I was and swivel to watch enraptured with pulse pounding and goosebumps rising on my forearms?
Why am I flushed with emotion now remembering it?
Other scenes, other visceral reactions. Harry meeting Ron and Hermione, their first glimpse of Hogwarts.
The first encounter with Snape, his sneering menace covering a complicated and tragic backstory. I cannot ever again think of Snape, even in the far simpler context of his introduction, without bringing together the chaotic threads of his story. To coalesce into the one proud and mournful word that stands as his epitaph:
<<shiver>>
Just as Peter Beagle noticed in 1973, there is a hunger in us to connect to transcendence. We resonate, our heartstrings quiver to that kernel of authenticity embedded in the best of literature, music, art. Our best selves tremble to be included, to understand and to join in the song. As C.S. Lewis realized in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, it is that Deep Magic written in us all. I think that is why fantasy has become such a commanding genre of literature and film.
And that is why fantasy particular forges such devoted fans. Why conventions and cosplay are rife with fantasy themes. Why authors such as Tolkien and Rowling and Riordan dominate cultural discourse. Why families visit theme parks and spend thousands of dollars for admission, then spend ten bucks a pop on Butterbeer.
And why grown-ups weep during the scene when Dobby draws his last breath......proclaiming
Dobby is happy to be with his friend, Harry Potter
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