An Ode to Richard Sharpe-Part 1

Who is Richard Sharpe? Why is he one of my favorite literary characters, on par with even James Bond and Sherlock Holmes? Why should everyone take the time to learn more about him?

My story begins during my second year in graduate school. Let me take you back to 1995 Baltimore. I was living in student housing at the corner of Lombard and Greene Street. Around that time, the University of Maryland Medical Center thought it would be a good idea to begin construction on what was to become the Homer Gudelsky tower, an addition to the University of Maryland Hospital located on the north side of Lombard Street right across from the student center. At the time, the new library had not been constructed, and the promise of a new building made me more excited because I knew that the value of any degree was based, in part, upon the modernity of the facilities at the educational institutions. Furthermore, I was granted a wonderful vantage point from which I could watch the hospital go up. My window faced the construction site, and I envisioned watching the building take shape from start to finish.

Unfortunately, the construction plans included a LOT of night construction. The cranes, cement mixers, and bulldozers worked through the evening, especially during the summer. Now, our building did not have air conditioned rooms, and those of you who are familiar with Baltimore in the summertime will understand how difficult sleep would be even under normal circumstances. My situation was exacerbated by the neverending cacophony of the construction across the street. This situation was made worse by the contractors need to have bright flood lights mounted high over the construction site. Remember, in "Seinfeld", how Kramer could not sleep thanks to the bright red Kenny Roger's Roaster's sign located near his window. I would welcome light that was that dim. My room, even through its curtains, was forever bathed in light. Insomnia beckoned nightly, and there was nothing I could do to keep it at bay.

During one of these sleepless summer nights (yes, in grad school for one's PhD, there are no summer vacations), I found myself channel surfing at 3 AM. I neither had cable nor particularly good aerial reception for my tiny 13" television. Most of the time, my local Maryland Public Television station was a grainy blur, but on this one evening, I was treated to a movie that would introduce me to one of my favorite literary characters-Richard Sharpe. I cannot remember the particulars of the film. All I remember was that I was mesmerized by the story of a British rifleman during the Peninsular Wars between Britain and the France of Napoleon Bonaparte. There was action, there was intrigue, and there was..history? Although I began my search for a show in a desperate bid to find something to put me to sleep, I ended up finding a film that kept me up until 5 AM, long after the construction had finally ceased for the night.

After that night, years went by. I never found another Sharpe film, and in the infancy that would become the World Wide Web, I never thought to try and search for Sharpe on the internet. Heck, I did not even have an e-mail address at that time. I just thought that if I ever came across a videotape of Sharpe (yes, this was before the advent of DVDs), I would definitely pick up the film.

Flash forward to the summer of 2002. Almost 8 years had passed since I first watched my first Richard Sharpe film, and I had almost forgotten about the character. True, I had watched the actor, Sean Bean, in numerous films afterwards (including particularly good turns in "Patriot Games" and "Goldeneye"), and I knew that he was to play the character of Boromir, a member of the "Fellowship of the Rings", in Peter Jackson's upcoming adaptation of the "Lord of the Rings" saga, but I had not thought about the character except on those rare occasions watching a Sean Bean film. This all changed one day while I was perusing the shelves of the Border's Books and Music on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Chicago Avenue along the Magnificent Mile here in Chicago. I was on a lunch break and was desperate to find something to read on my long journeys to and from work. Riding the El without reading material is infinitely more tiring when there is nothing to grab one's attention, and I started to scan the titles in the "literature" section, starting with authors whose names began with the letter "A". My intent was to find a book series rather than an individual novel. After the "As" and "Bs" failed to yield anything of interest, my eyes were immediately drawn towards a series of novels whose spines were bright orange in color. I started a bit when I noticed the title of the first novel in the series was..."Sharpe's Rifles." The author was a man named Bernard Cornwell, a British expat now living in Massachusetts. Was the movie I remembered actually based on a series of books? That seemed too good to be true. I decided to take a chance. I picked "Sharpe's Rifles" from the shelf, made my way to the cashier, and made my purchase, with the intent that I would start reading it on my ride home from work.

Join me for my next blog entry, where I will answer the question "Who is Richard Sharpe?" in much more detail.