I wanted to put in my feelings about
Smith already a week ago, but never found time to put it into words. So now there is even more to say.
In view of davem's interest in it: In my German translation of the story (which was the one did read first) and in my English edition there are no illustrations to the text. But I did not miss them, while reading. I am more fascinated by
The Silmarillion, but I do not think that any illustration would have changed this.
Posted by Aiwendil:
Quote:
|
In particular, I wonder whether the divide between those who find Smith more moving and those who prefer The Silmarillion might roughly coincide with the divide between those who are interested in authorial intention and those who fall into the "reader's freedom" or "textual supremacy" camps. For it seems to me that in Smith the voice of the author is more clearly revealed; there is a stronger authorial presence. In The Silmarillion, the art and the artist seem to be more fully concealed.
|
I never counted my self in one of the camps, and I will not do so now. But I think that both books did work on me in a completely different fashion.
Smith as a stand-alone work does work on me with the story it reveals - nothing more but also nothing less. The story it self is greatly moving, but it is a closed cycle or better a finished tale. As in any good fiction of that kind a reader can identify with the protagonist at least to some degree. But there is not much going beyond the point when you have read the end of the tale.
The Silmarillion works otherwise for me: There are only in a few places protagonists which whom I can "feel" the story, like I can do with [i]Smith[I] (one of the places that comes to mind is the last stand of the Húrin). Thus while reading the text
Smith is the greater pleasure, but that is only one side of the coin and for me not the one were the value is printed. It is like saying that the German 5 Euro-Cent coin does show the nicer picture on its motive side (oak-leaves) than the German 10 Euro-Cent coin (Brandenburger Gate).
The Silmarillion provides for my mind much more fuel for imagination beyond the text than does
Smith. What builds the fascination of
The Silmarillion for me are all the untold story, which are left for the reader to imagine by himself. The way in which
The Silmarillion does tell the stories it contains leaves even in the stories told much more room for the imagination of the reader. In
Smith and also in
The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings the text does provide the reader with a clear picture of landscape, scenery and the ongoing story which is detailed enough to catch the imagination at once. In
The Silmarillion on the other hand we get not much more than the bare facts of the narrative, to imagine all the details of the picture is left to the readers mind. That I think is, by the way, one of the reason why the appeal of
The Silmarillion is often not found while reading it the first time.
For me at least it was a great pleasure to find some of the stories of
The Silmarillion told in more detail in later publications like
Unfinished Tales and
The History of Middle-Earth but part of that pleasure was also the fact that with climbing each mountain ridge of full-told stories and solved riddles a further even higher ridge of new untold stories or new unravelled riddles would come into sight.
Thus I am a lover of
The Silmarillion and it has the higher value for me than
Smith of Wootton Major or even
The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings.
Respectfully
Findegil