Smith of Wootton Major in Middle Earth?

[littlemanpoet]

Your insights, Lalwendë and Bethberry,
will require a second and third reading, without hurry,
to sufficiently process their content.
It will not be time mis-spent.

Garnering quotes from the Letters,
Here's Tolkien's thought on these matters.

#299 To Roger Lancelyn Green [who in reviewing SWOM wrote: 'To seek for the meaning is to cut open the ball in search of its bounce.'] Thank you for your most gracious review (esp. for comment on the search for source of bounce!). ... But the little tale was (of course) not intended for children! An old man's book, already weighted with the presage of 'bereavement'.

I had thought there was more in the Letters on Smith.
At any rate, I've noticed that Tolkien refers to his myth
in various ways. The Silmarillion is "a history" (unless
that's Christopher's subtitle?), which fits, I guess,
the sense of its biblicality. But there's more
than that in The Sil; there's something in its lore
that goes beyond, or at least otherwhere,
so to speak. By contrast, LotR, is that rare
thing (in our day at least), a heroic romance.


What then of Smith?
Not a myth?

Sorry, no more rhymed verse. It's too difficult to find the right wording as it is.

I notice that nowhere does Tolkien name
what the story of Wootton's Smith is.
A 'book' with bereavement weighted.
The transition traverses both In and Out
of Faery; for Alf dwells in Wootton,
bringing Faery back to our(?) world while
Smith of Wootton wanders wayward.
Perhaps this cross-pollenation pertains
to why its magic moves some of us wights.(?)

[davem]

Not sure where I'm going with this but...

Smith seems, on one level, to be a series of images, incredibly bright, colourful & intense, strung together with connecting narrative, rather like a 'necklace'. The 'storyline' seems less important than the images it contains. This thread was sparked by a single image - a scene illustrated by Pauline Baynes. In fact, I'd go so far as to ask how important Pauline Baynes illustrations are. My edition of Smith has those illustrations (& so does the upcoming Flieger edited edition I referred to earlier) & I have to admit that they are what first struck me about Smith (LMP's avatar is one for anyone who hasn't seen them). When I think of Smith it is those pictures that first come to mind - actually I remember little of the actual text itself, only the general storyline.

I wonder about this. Hearing the BBC radio adaptation of Smith a few years back I remember feeling disappointed & it took me a while to work out why - the acting wasn't bad, the adatation (by Brian Sibley who had previously co-adapted the BBC LotR) was good, but it somehow wasn't the Smith that I know & loved. I realised later that it was the absence of Baynes' illustrations. Oh to see an animated version of Smith in that style!

I'm beginning to wonder if it is the illustrations,not the text, of Smith that provide the real doorway into Faerie for me in terms of this story.' The one of the 'Eleven' Mariners', 'the one of Smith & Alf returning to the Great Hall', etc: these are 'Smith' to me. What I'm also beginning to wonder is whether the reason for this is that the pictures can stand alone, & thus, not necessarily being bound to the story Tolkien wrote, can spark the imagination, or open the mind & heart, to Faerie itself.

I wonder if the 'split' between the 'Sils' & the 'Smiths' might have something to do with which edition of the text they have read - maybe those of us who have read the illustrated edition of Smith find it the more 'Faerielike' of the two, & I wonder how much Pauline Baynes work has to do with that.

(Waits for loads of people to say they prefer Smith even though they've never seen the illustrations....)

[Findegil]

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:

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

[Bêthberry]

Ah, davem, a nice idea, to consider Pauline Bayne's illustrations. Alas I read Smith sans illustrations, although I have been perusing covers for Lewis' Narnia lately. But your idea makes me think of Tolkien's comment (somewhere in the Letters, although I cannot find it now) where he descries drama as a rightful form for presenting LotR. I think his reasoning was that, in creating such a specific representation, drama limits the imagination. Yet paintings he excluded from this. I suppose it had to do with the physicality of the presence in drama. Yet clearly his writing stimulated so many artists and their work, as you argue here, further stimulates readers' enjoyment.

Findegil I think you do well to point out that some readers do not belong to either of the “Canonicity Camps”, and I am very intrigued by the way you apply this notion of “reading beyond the text” as a key form of inspiration, particularly to The Silm in its sparsely detailed landscape and its suggestively undeveloped plotlines.

Frankly, a lack of landscape description has never of itself prompted me to imagine terrain or get more involved in a story. For example, when I read Oedipus, I am not inspired to imagine what the road looked like where he killed his father; I am more intrigued by contemplating this primal act of “road rage” and its implication for the tragic resolution of the play. Perhaps this is what intrigues you about The Silm, that its plots seem to proliferate like rabbits? It certainly has great potential to generate role playing game plots!

I myself am intrigued by, for instance, how the Ainulindalë and the Valaquenta seem to echo the two versions of creation given in Genesis and how the valar ressemble (or not) the ancient gods of the Greek pantheon. This to me is the enjoyment of literary archeology.

But I don’t want to engage in a Silm versus Smith battle of the monster tales, because even if one is bigger than the other, well, hierarchies of size don’t always prove worth. I do, however, want to consider your statement about Smith in some detail.

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.

Surely Smith is not quite as closed as you imply? This thread demonstrates that there are at least three ways in which the tale is not closed.

First, littlemanpoet has wondered if these mariners Smith meets come out of the tale of the Numenorians, thus providing the kind of ‘going beyond’ which, as I understand it, you say is your prime delight in The Silm.

Second, Smith has been suggested to be almost an allegory of Tolkien’s life as a writer of fantasy. What causes readers to generate from this tale an authorial biography? (And, I would ask, if this biographical imperative does represent Tolkien’s life, what does this tell us about his thoughts of Christopher? Did Tolkien not believe his son, his literary heir and the man responsible for the publishing of The Silm, had entry to Faerie?)

Third, Aiwendil has suggested that Smith provides a treatise on fairey such that it suggests requirements for a fantasy story, requirements that Smith itself does not satisfy. The fact that Aiwendil has not fully articulated what he thinks these requirements are does not disprove his idea that this story generates literary theory.

Oh, and there is a fourth, Helen’s idea of seeking for mystery and transcendence in the character’s trespass. And--five!--Lalwendë suggests that Arda and faerie are different aspects of the same thing—what is this thing?

So, it seems to me that Smith is able to generate thought and idea as well as The Silm does. Perhaps what we need to clarify is what do we mean by a closed text and by going beyond a text?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Bethberry

Lalwendë suggests that Arda and faerie are different aspects of the same thing—what is this thing?

Originally Posted by me

faerie, which is at once a different world and the same world as Arda.

Faerie is nobody's creation, but Arda is a literary creation. Yet as Faerie exists in our imaginations (it could in fact be real, just that we cannot quite grasp how to get there), and as Arda is the product of an imagination, further developed by many other readers' imaginations, Arda must have something of faerie contained within.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bb

Surely Smith is not quite as closed as you imply? This thread demonstrates that there are at least three ways in which the tale is not closed.

i wonder whether tolkien considered the story, & the world it depicted as 'closed'. Flieger quotes from an essay Tolkien wrote on Smith (so far unpublished but to be included in the new ed)

The Great Hall is evidently in a way an 'allegory' of the village Church; the Master Cook with his house adjacent, & his office that is not hereditary, provides for its own instruction & succession but is not one of the 'secular' or profitable crafts, & yet is supported by the village, is plainly the Parson & the Priesthood. 'Cooking' is a domestic affair practised by men & women: personal religion & prayer. the Master Cook presides over & provides for all the religious festivals of the year, & also for all the religious occaisions that are not universal: births, marriages, & deaths'

'The Forest lies on the western edge of Wooton Major, whose one Inn bears over its door a stone with a worn & faded carving of three trees & the inscription [I]'Welco to the Wode.'....The western villages of the country, among them the Wooton's & Walton, were originally main points of contact between Faery & this country of Men; they had been at an earlier period actually within the forest borders, as their names signify.' (Wooton comes from Old English wudu-tun- 'town in or by a wood', & Walton, a village even samller than Wooton Minor, from weald-tun,' town in a wood or on a wold' ).....Walton, even deeper in the forest than Wooton Minor, is evidently still the point of entry into Faery for those humans who venture there.'

These quotes seem to imply that Tolkien saw SoWM as an 'allegory' on one level & a 'history' on another, or maybe it was more that if it was viewd from one angle it was one thing, if viewed from another it was something else....

[littlemanpoet]

We all know what Tolkien thought of allegory. I find it interesting that at least two separate allegories have been forwarded about SWOM: (1) the town hall as parish church, and (2) autobiography on Tolkien and his son Christopher (this is not the first time I've heard of this). I wonder how many more plausible allegories could be developed? Legion, I bet. Not that they're not worth the time to think about (I've been reading canonicity lately but it'll be a while before I finish), but I doubt that Tolkien intended the story as allegory. I summation, interesting, but I wouldn't take it too far.

What's this about Smith actually being the king of faery?

I'm not sure I can lend even the faintest ray of light on the subject of what makes the Sil versus SWOM the more moving work for this or that reader. I, like davem, do find Pauline Baynes' art to be "of a piece" with the Tolkien stories she has illustrated. You should see the Middle Earth map she illustrated! I like Bethberry's comment on the nature of the painted arts versus drama which as Tolkien said requires a second suspension of disbelief.

My problem with the Sil is that it is (a collection of) the legends and mysteries in the deeps of time, revealed. I am moved by Finrod Felagund's death, by the tragedy of Maedhros, the doom of Turin, and so on. Come right down to it, I think the Sil is flawed by virtue of Christopher not being J.R.R. The work needed the father's hand, his prose, his poetry, his genius. But that's another thread altogether, I suppose. So I do give some credence to the notion that the son didn't get the star from Smith; it went to someone unlikely but suitable.

I'm going round in circles here, not landing on anything worthwhile.

:: LMP shuffles away to give all this more thought::

[mark12_30]

[Smith] stood beside the Sea of Windless Storm where the blue waves like snow-clad hills roll silently out of Unlight to the long strand, bearing the white ships that return from battles on the Dark Marches of which men know nothing. He saw a great ship cast high upon the land, and the waters fell back in foam without a sound. The eleven mariners were tall and terrible; their swords shone and their spears glinted and a piercing light was in their eyes. Suddenly they lifted up their voices in a song of triumph, and his heart was shaken with fear, and he fell upon his face, and they passed over him and went into the echoing hills.

I read Smith again last night.
Anyway, upon rereading it I do think Smith lands in Faerie/Valinor. It's still very dreamy. Like Littlemanpoet, I think Faerie is very much like Valinor. It takes Smith a long time to get to the inner circle (reminded me of Lorien, where the Two Trees once stood, the center and essence of Fairyland.) Although, I don't think the king and queen are Manwe and Varda-- I think they are the king and queen of the Vanyar. I'm supposed to remember his name... Ingwe, Elwe-Elu Thingol, and there's a third. Is it Ingwe?

It struck me that this is a windless sea. IMO it can't be "our" Western sea that lies just beyond the Ered Luin. What struck me was that this sea lies on the OTHER side of Valinor/ Faerie; beyond Mandos? The far side of Valinor. The "Dark Marches" reminded me of the Void.

His soul can't handle the Elven Men/Eleven men-- is that because where Elves and Men meet is not the same as where Elves and the outer Darkness meet?