book.
We encountered our first elephant in the pages of a book.
Spoiler alert. Some entries in the Table make veiled reference to entries elsewhere in the Table. Some of you tell us you’ve enjoying discovering these associations on your own, so maybe hold off reading these rubric items until you’ve spent time with the Table as a whole. Which, if you can’t spring for the print version right now, you’ll find it here.
book.
76 | Horton
Horton stars in two Dr. Seuss books, one of which, Horton Hatches the Egg, introduced us to the Whos. Much has been made in recent years of artist/writer Theodor Giesel’s WWII anti-Japanese propaganda work, but he changed his views radically after the war, using the Whos to inspire and embolden us to value those we may overlook or misunderstand.
(Horton also appears in a short story, Horton and the Kwuggerbug, published in 2014 along with other “lost Seuss stories.”)
book.
77 | Oliphaunt
In The Lord of the Rings, the invading Haradrim strapped great tiered towers onto the backs of these beasts, and from these their archers and spearsmen rained death on their enemies. Worse, these beasts, goaded and maddened by their masters, charged through enemy lines and trampled swordsmen, horses, and piglets.
book.
78 | Sir Oliphant
In the “Tale of Sir Thomas” chapter of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, we meet the horrible giant Sir Oliphant (or Sire Olifaunt) (who attempts to crush fleeing piglets like bugs). The Host interrupts this story with the complaint that Chaucer’s rhymes are “not worth a turd.”
book.
79 | Double Elephant Folio
Publishing term: an elephant folio book may be up to 58.5 centimeters (23 inches) tall, and a double elephant folio up to 127 centimeters (50 inches) tall. James Audubon’s famous double elephant folio Birds of America, published in 1858, weighed 27 kilos (60 pounds).
book.
80 | Heffalump
In A.A. Milne’s Pooh books, Piglet has nightmares of being chased by a heffalump.
book.
81 | Babar
The first King of the Elephants, he showed us elephants can be effective, conscientious, and responsible administrators in the public service, which is more than you can say for 95% of elephants in office.
book.
82 | Uncle
The late bon vivant Jim Magee introduced us to J.P. Martin’s Uncle books, which we grew up without, and which fortunately were re-released in the early 2000s. Uncle lives in a mansion made of 100 skyscrapers connected by switchback railways running tower to tower, with water slides top to bottom. He and his friends have an ongoing battle with what we will just say is the most colorful and surreal cast of villains in all of literature.