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LotR/NYC dream for shits and giggles
Feb. 11th, 2021 10:36 pmI dreamed that I was reading Lord of the Rings for the first time since I was in middle school, and noticed whole swathes of it that I had forgotten because they were cut from the movies for time.
For example, I hadn’t picked up on the part where Boromir is actually from our world — he was from [NYC-in-Oklahoma/Virginia] that had recently gone through rapid industrialization and urbanization. He came from a lineage of feudal lords who had control over miles of fields up through his childhood, but with industrialization had come a loss of power, so he now hailed from an apartment building at the corner of 46th and 6th Streets. I thought that was kind of random, because once his journey takes him from our world to Middle-Earth and he joins the Fellowship, it’s never really brought up again until they send home his body.
But no, it turns out that as a child I also hadn’t picked up on the part where the Fellowship has to travel through the NYC subway system as part of the route that they needed to take to reach Mordor! They went through Manhattan and boarded the 4-5-6 and the hobbits (from whose perspective I participated in the rest of the story) were particularly stressed because it’s technology moving at a much faster pace than hobbit life is usually lived. Despite knowing the 4-5-6, I wasn’t familiar with the route that we took, especially not once the train left the underground and we were suddenly flying through the air while clinging tightly to the bars provided for the purpose (no chairs, no exterior shell, just suddenly: teal bars lined up like those ropes with handholds that preschools use to guide toddlers along the sidewalk). I realized, looking out at our surroundings, that of course — Tolkien was writing in an earlier time period, and so this was all taking place when the High Line was still a train, not a park. The High Line also took us across the bay to Jersey, which was where the underground pathway back to Middle-Earth was, but from there the dream became much more random again.
(But if Boromir was originally from our world, I thought, why was his name Boromir? Tolkien had a reason for everything re: names. And it turns out that the answer was that Boromir could be translated from the Language of Men to the equivalent of Bruce, which was his name in this world.)
Important to Note: I've been watching Season 2 of His Dark Materials with T, and my brain was very clearly drawing on (a) Lord Boreal/Charles Latrom's traveling; (b) Will and Lyra traveling through other worlds for safety; and (c) the experience of re-experiencing a story I last read years ago and discovering I don't remember large portions of it, or completely misinterpreted sections due to an unfamiliar word, etc.
***
(Despite vivid memories of the first and third books in the series, the ONLY plotline I retained from the Subtle Knife was Mary's - but I retained that with such specificity, down to some sentences and phrases, that I completely forgot how much of the book just fell out of my memory. Which is, I guess, pretty typical for many people, but not for me! I have a stupidly precise memory for about a dozen books/series that made a huge impression on me in grade school, and His Dark Materials was definitely one of them.)
(I was talking about Pantalaimon's preferred shapes with T, for example, and they pointed out that he took a bunch of marten-relative forms before settling, and I realized I hadn't picked up on that trend partially because I hadn't know what the animals were, so I just filled in the gaps - like a polecat! Did not know until a few months ago that they're basically wild ferrets!)
For example, I hadn’t picked up on the part where Boromir is actually from our world — he was from [NYC-in-Oklahoma/Virginia] that had recently gone through rapid industrialization and urbanization. He came from a lineage of feudal lords who had control over miles of fields up through his childhood, but with industrialization had come a loss of power, so he now hailed from an apartment building at the corner of 46th and 6th Streets. I thought that was kind of random, because once his journey takes him from our world to Middle-Earth and he joins the Fellowship, it’s never really brought up again until they send home his body.
But no, it turns out that as a child I also hadn’t picked up on the part where the Fellowship has to travel through the NYC subway system as part of the route that they needed to take to reach Mordor! They went through Manhattan and boarded the 4-5-6 and the hobbits (from whose perspective I participated in the rest of the story) were particularly stressed because it’s technology moving at a much faster pace than hobbit life is usually lived. Despite knowing the 4-5-6, I wasn’t familiar with the route that we took, especially not once the train left the underground and we were suddenly flying through the air while clinging tightly to the bars provided for the purpose (no chairs, no exterior shell, just suddenly: teal bars lined up like those ropes with handholds that preschools use to guide toddlers along the sidewalk). I realized, looking out at our surroundings, that of course — Tolkien was writing in an earlier time period, and so this was all taking place when the High Line was still a train, not a park. The High Line also took us across the bay to Jersey, which was where the underground pathway back to Middle-Earth was, but from there the dream became much more random again.
(But if Boromir was originally from our world, I thought, why was his name Boromir? Tolkien had a reason for everything re: names. And it turns out that the answer was that Boromir could be translated from the Language of Men to the equivalent of Bruce, which was his name in this world.)
Important to Note: I've been watching Season 2 of His Dark Materials with T, and my brain was very clearly drawing on (a) Lord Boreal/Charles Latrom's traveling; (b) Will and Lyra traveling through other worlds for safety; and (c) the experience of re-experiencing a story I last read years ago and discovering I don't remember large portions of it, or completely misinterpreted sections due to an unfamiliar word, etc.
***
(Despite vivid memories of the first and third books in the series, the ONLY plotline I retained from the Subtle Knife was Mary's - but I retained that with such specificity, down to some sentences and phrases, that I completely forgot how much of the book just fell out of my memory. Which is, I guess, pretty typical for many people, but not for me! I have a stupidly precise memory for about a dozen books/series that made a huge impression on me in grade school, and His Dark Materials was definitely one of them.)
(I was talking about Pantalaimon's preferred shapes with T, for example, and they pointed out that he took a bunch of marten-relative forms before settling, and I realized I hadn't picked up on that trend partially because I hadn't know what the animals were, so I just filled in the gaps - like a polecat! Did not know until a few months ago that they're basically wild ferrets!)
