A Literary Vision

 

 Last night Professor Tolkien, Oxford philologist and epic literary genre creator, appeared to me in a dream. “Hopper,” he addressed me through a cloud of pipe smoke, at ease before an old English hillside, “see this man?” 

And an image appeared before me:

 

“Y-yes,” I said, still amazed at the vision of the Professor in front of me and not really focusing on this newer image.

 

“Look!”

 

This time I did look. “Who is it?”

 

“This is Edward Gibbon. He lived from 1737 until 1794.”

 

I did a quick calculation. “56! That’s my age! … my God, do I look like that?”

 

Tolkien blew a ring of smoke and the Gibbon image faded. “Do you know this man?”

 

Gibbon … Gibbon … Yes! “Yes! He wrote about the Roman Empire. The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire – ”

 

“The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” he casually corrected me with a trace of a grin. “You have this book in your collection.”

 

I thought a moment, then – yes! – in my Great Books of the Western World collection, currently housed in the storage space under the staircase along with all the Christmas decorations recently put away.

 

“I read that book … twenty years ago.”

 

The Professor raised his eyebrows.

 

“Well,” I back-pedaled, “I started to read it. Maybe got a hundred pages in.” I thought further, scanning my memories. “It was in Cape Cod. My wife and I were first dating, on our first weekend away together, and I picked it up in a bookstore there.”

 

“Indeed you did, but you never finished it.”

 

What he said was true. But where was this going?

 

As if he could read my thoughts, he put aside his pipe and stared into my eyes. “Hopper, I appreciate your plan to delve back into my works, in a certain ‘internally chronologic way’ as you put it. Tell me, how many times have you read my works?”

 

“Many times, sir.”

 

“More than once?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“More than twice?”

 

“Yes.” Where was this heading? “I’ve read your works since I was ten or so. The Hobbit. Then The Lord of the Rings, as a twelve or thirteen-year-old. I stumbled a bit through The Silmarillion the next year, but then I took a twenty year hiatus until I re-read them all. This spring will be my fifth go around – ”

 

“And how many times has your daughter gone to Italy?”

 

I froze, jaw agape. I think I knew where this was going.

 

Tolkien started to meander down a muddy lane that just happened to materialize. Bales of hay dotted the fields past a wooden fence. “Your daughter is going to Italy, perhaps the heart of Western Civilization. She is going there to study philosophy, art, and architecture, and, let us not forget, literature. You’ve always did some sort of sympathetic reading with her, no?”

 

“Yes. When she was assigned The Divine Comedy freshman year I read it too. Then, on her recommendation, I started The Aeneid, but, to be honest, I never finished it.”

 

He paused in consideration. “How long will she be gone?”

 

“Four months.”

 

“I think you should take up a work related to Italy that would take you about four months to journey through.”

 

The light went off, and he smiled at me as we said, together, “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire!”

 

He chuckled. “Plus, if I know you as well as I think I do, Hopper, it’s also a work on your bucket list?”

 

“Yes! Yes it is!”

 

Then a hearty laugh, and he reached in to his inner jacket pocket for a pinch of tobacco and relit his pipe. “Hopper, I grant you permission to set aside a fifth re-reading of my works to spiritually walk the streets of ancient Rome as your daughter walks the modern ones, and cross another item off your list.”

 

I was enlightened. “Thank you, master!”

 

“There is but one master,” the devout Catholic said to me, “and I am not He.”

 

And as I was about to reply in affirmation, the vision faded and I woke nestled and comfortable in my bed.