The Horse Boy
One of the comments I got from a friend after he read my last entry was that I was beginning to sound old. I know this was written with at least part of his tongue stuck in his cheek…but not entirely. Let me assure him and everyone else that I am far from ready to pass the baton. In fact I can guarantee that when the time comes you’ll need to pry it from dead, cold fingers. As Winston Churchill wrote so eloquently long ago: Never give up, never, never give up.
Here’s just another example of something great that’s tucked in the “pipeline”. This one you’ll have to search for…or you can read the book, as I am.
This is one of those movies that the trailer made me want to see the film. In fact, it was due to the trailer that I picked up the book.
As a society we’ve, so often, hidden our problems from sight. Problems like the severely autistic. The children who for no reason throw violent, head-banging, screaming, tantrums; children who foul themselves; children who will not make contact with us and our world. Rowan Isaacson was one such child. Maybe not as bad as some, but bad enough to make his parents feel like outcasts because they chose to have their son live with them rather then be institutionalized.
As I watched the trailer for the film, it was revealed that the plan was to take Rowan to the only place in the world where Shamanism is still widely practiced: Mongolia.
You’re probably asking: Why Shamanism? Why “Horse Boy”? For those answers you’ll need to either visit the website, read the book or track down the movie.
When I saw the trailer I was plagued by two questions: Could I love someone so much that I’d drop everything and go on a quest that, no matter how irrational it seems, in my heart I know it might lead to them being healed? Is that madness or real love? There were no guarantees. No way of knowing the outcome.
There were two other things I wanted to know: When was the movie being released and does the library have the book on its shelves?
bb
10/21/09
There’s no underestimating it such commitment; reminds me of Lorenzo’s Oil. A couple of years ago a father was so frustrated at finding a treatment for his child’s unusual condition, he went back to school so he could learn to medically research it himself. Then there’s the science prof over at UConn who has pretty much devoted his life to figuring out time travel because of some formative trauma about his father’s passing. Even has a book out on it I think simply called “Time Traveller”–it should still be at the Ferg.
Rolf,
I’d heard of Lorenzo’s Oil but Time Traveler was a new one to me. I did some research and found the author is Ronald L. Mallett. I’ll have to check it out. Thanks.