Smith of Wootton Major in Middle Earth?

[Lalwendë]

A few thoughts about the difference between the Sil and Smith...

Originally Posted by Felagund

I do know what it is that moves me about the Silmarillion. It is the tragedy about it. The utter tragedy. So many noble figures, paragons of virtue that no mere mortals could aspire to be

Someone once said after first reading the Sil that they had found it to be 'biblical', and this statement struck me as similar to how I view the work. It is grand in scope, full of 'large' and legendary figures and tales from Arda, the world in which we have entered when we read it. Just like the characters and tales from the bible (and in particular the Old testament) the characters and tales of the Sil are slightly remote from our experience, and when such grand and lofty characters fall, they seem to fall even further and that fall is a greater tragedy.

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

I agree that Smith is not just a literary treatise. Still, I do think that in certain important respects it has the character of a meditation on the nature of fantasy literature, as opposed to a work of fantasy literature.

I do agree that there is this aspect to Smith. Whether intentional or not I do not know, but I'm thinking it may originate from our knowledge that it is not a tale of Arda. It is a tale of faerie, which is at once a different world and the same world as Arda. Smith is more a tale of a shifting and intangible world, and it has a link to our own world in the world of Wooton Major. The Sil does not have that, it is self contained. Smith is also a much more intimate tale in that we follow a narrator, a protagonist into faerie, while in The Sil we watch many characters.

Thinking about the narrator idea, Smith has a lot more in common with LotR and The Hobbit than it does with The Sil; in both of those we journey into the new worlds alongside the major characters, even in the parts of LotR where we are not with Frodo, then he is very much on our minds as everything which is done is done for the success of his mission. In Smith we also journey with the main character. These books are more like tales, while The Sil is more like scripture, if that's the correct word to use!

So I can see what lmp is getting at by thinking of Smith's faerie as another offshoot of Arda; the way we get there and the sensations we get from the place are very similar. But is it really part of Arda? I think it is like it, but it is another place.