Yes, Tolkien is Wonderful, but...

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

I take the point, but I'm not sure that it applies to Smith, or even Niggle - or maybe to the latter only if viewed as allegory. Smith, certainly, includes the unexplainable & the marvellous. And yet... it seems Tolkien struggled with that very aspect of SoWM - to the extent that he wrote an essay 'explaining' the inexplicable elements. Of course, if he hadn't been the kind of writer who was driven to explain & rationalise then M-e would have been so much less complete & believable.

A good point. You could be right that Smith and Niggle--and Bombadil and Goldberry for that matter--are 'outside' that aspect of Middle-earth. Yet for Smith Faery is a place he desires to visit. Access to Faery seems to depend upon inheritance of the Star and while Faery does intrude slightly upon the 'real world' of those of the ilk of Nokes, it doesn't seriously disrupt or threaten their perspective, so it seems to be a place of selective or individual perception rather than a challenge to the norm of the Nokes et al. The two realities exist side by side so to speak, rather than in a collision. Does the marvellous exist in magic realism as a secret venue only for those who choose to see it? It still depends in Smith upon a King who forsakes Faery to live amongst the folk.

Originally Posted by Nerwen

I tend to regard magical realism as a sub-class of fantasy. I feel that it takes too much special pleading to argue that it isn't fantasy at all.

And fantasy is a sub-class of romance and we're back with the classification of one of those members of the literati, Frye.

It's interesting that magic realism became so identified with literature of South and Central America. I've seen one humorous definition that suggests it belongs to Spanish-speaking cultures. We can wonder what the influence of Don Quioxte might be.

Originally Posted by Beanamir, from Lost Tales

"I am doubtful myself about the undertaking [to write the Silmarillion.]. Part of the attraction of the L.R. is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background: an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in the sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed." J.R.R. Tolkien, Letters p. 333

I suppose we could characterise Tolkien's aesthetic as the strip tease version of reader-approach.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Yet for Smith Faery is a place he desires to visit. Access to Faery seems to depend upon inheritance of the Star and while Faery does intrude slightly upon the 'real world' of those of the ilk of Nokes, it doesn't seriously disrupt or threaten their perspective, so it seems to be a place of selective or individual perception rather than a challenge to the norm of the Nokes et al. The two realities exist side by side so to speak, rather than in a collision.

Yes, but its more complex in the Smith Essay:

The crafts of Wootton, on which their present prosperity was based, actually owed their fame and commercial success in the beginning to the special skill and 'artistic' quality which contact with Faery had given to them. But the commercial success had for some time begun to have effect. The village had become comfortable and self-satisfied. The artistic quality of its products was declining, and to some extent also their traditional manual skill, though this had not yet affected their market. But the village was in a danger which it did not see: a dwindling of its prosperity, which would not be maintained for ever by 'good name' and established connexions with eastern customers, nor by mere industry and business acumen. If the thread between the villagers and Faery was broken it would go back to its squalid beginnings. All was not well indeed in the village itself. The practisers of the marketable and exportable crafts were becoming richer and more important, dominating the Council. The minor trades and professions, especially those of mere local use, were depressed; many had ceased to follow their fathers and had become hired men serving the smiths and wrights and weavers. Such folk as the Sedgers (the tale-tellers), the musicians: Pipers, Harpers, Crowthers, Fidlers and Homers* and the Sangsters, as also those skilled in designing, painting, and in carving or smithying things of beauty. The Dyers owing to their connexion with the weaving crafts (of great importance) remained prosperous, but were (unnoticed by themselves) losing both taste and skill.
The vulgarization of Wootton is indicated by Nokes. He is obviously a somewhat extreme case, but clearly represents an attitude fast spreading in the village and growing in weight. The festivals are becoming, or have already become, mere occasions for eating and drinking. Songs, tales music dancing no longer play a part - at least they are not provided for (as is the cooking and catering) out of public funds, and if they take place at all it is in family parties, and especially in the entertainment of children. The Hall is no longer decorated, though kept in good structural order. History and legend and above all any tales touching on 'faery', have become regarded as children's stuff, patronizingly tolerated for the amusement of the very young.

This situation is evidently one that has aroused the concern of Faery. Why? It is plainly shown that Faery is a vast world in its own right, that does not depend for its existence upon Men, and which is not primarily nor indeed principally concerned with Men. The relationship must therefore be one of love: the Elven Folk, the chief and ruling inhabitants of Faery, have an ultimate kinship with Men and have a permanent love for them in general. Though they are not bound by any moral obligation to assist Men, and do not need their help (except in human affairs), they do from time to time try to assist them, avert evil from them and have relations with them, especially through certain men and women whom they find suitable. They, the Elvenfolk are thus 'beneficent' with regard to Men, and are not wholly alien, though many things and creatures in Faery itself are alien to Men and even actively hostile. Their good will is seen mainly in attempting to keep or restore relationships between the two worlds, since the Elves (and still some Men) realize that this love of Faery is essential to the full and proper human development. The love of Faery is the love of love: a relationship towards all things, animate and inanimate, which includes love and respect, and removes or modifies the spirit of possession and domination. Without it even plain 'Utility' will in fact become less useful; or will turn to ruthlessness and lead only to mere power, ultimately destructive.* The Apprentice relationship in the tale is thus interesting. Men in a large part of their activities are or should be in an apprentice status as regards the Elven folk. In an attempt to rescue Wootton from its decline, the Elves reverse the situation, and the King of Faery himself comes and serves as an apprentice in the village. .....

(*'For this reason the Elvenfolk are chary of giving to any human person possession of any device of their own which is endowed with Elvish power called by Men by many names, such as magic. Most Men will certainly misuse it as a mere instrument for their own personal power and success. All men will tend to cling to it as a personal possession. )


It is probable that the world of Faery could not exist without our world, and is affected by the events in it — the reverse being also true. The 'health' of both is affected by state of the other. Men have not the power to assist the Elvenfolk in the ordering and defence of their realm; but the Elves have the power (subject to finding co-operation from within) to assist in the protection of our world, especially in the attempt to re-direct Men when their development tends to the defacing or destruction of their world. The Elves may thus have also an enlightened self-interest in human affairs.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

It's interesting that magic realism became so identified with literature of South and Central America. I've seen one humorous definition that suggests it belongs to Spanish-speaking cultures. We can wonder what the influence of Don Quioxte might be.

I'd argue that Spanish-speaking cultures are just inherently cooler when it comes to art. I mean... Salvador Dali, anybody?

More seriously, I feel an internal nudge to point out that before it blossomed in [mostly Latin American] literature, magic[al] realism was a visual arts idea for some post-Expressionism [potentially German but I don't have my old notebook with me] work. The images in question are painted with a degree of such hyper-realism that they become surreal in how perfect they are. There's no blatant magicness about them, and no fantasy, only the mundane transformed through sheer being into the extraordinary. Here's an example of contemporary hyper-realist painting: some of it doesn't count as it has fantastical elements, but others, particularly his Vespid Mortem series, portray something exceptionally simple in an astonishing manner.

Give that visual arts connection, and my inability to keep one form of art packaged safely away from another, I'm curious if that idea shifts Tolkien's work closer into the category of magic[al] realism: he creates such a hyper-realistic world that fans often know more about it than they know about their own...

[Bêthberry]

davem, that quotation is exceptionally interesting for presenting Tolkien's ideas on Faery, but at the same time I want to say, "Whoa, wait a minute!" He's adding so much more 'backstory' that essentially he is nearly rewriting the story. I'm not sure the story can sustain all the implications he makes there, but of course a fragment such as that can't give full flavour.

And as pertains to the discussion of magic realism, that passage seems even more to move away from the mode and tone of, say, Garcia Marquez or Salman Rushdie.

Fea, yes, I remember that it was a German art critic who first used the term, but I also have a vague recollection that he really didn't need to use it, as Surrealism was what he was really talking about?

I don't know about Tolkien giving so much detail as to create a hyper-realistic world. It's the gaps in the detail I think that quicken the imagination.

anyhow, must scoot now, some non-hyper work calls.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

As I was reading through the introduction to the Book of Lost Tales Part I, at one point Christopher Tolkien says that his father was reluctant to even introduce the Silm to his readers:

Whoa, whoa, whoa there, Nellie! Check for context!

Christopher Tolkien in the BLT I Foreword was quoting Tom Shippey, who was in turn quoting the JRRT letter: and CRT was in fact *criticising* Shippey for interpolating the words "to write The Silmarillion." JRRT never wrote them- and in any case, Shippey was under the very false impression that Tolkien hadn't, in fact, already written The Silmarillion*, much of it many times over.

In fact in the Second and Third Editions of The Road to Middle-earth Shippey has retracted his interpolation.


EDIT 11/7: In the 2004 edition of RME, Shippey writes, "I should have looked back at the antecedent sentences of the letter, and realised that what was meant was something more like 'I am doubtful myself about the undertaking [to make The Silmarillion consistent both internally and with the now-published Lord of the Rings, and above all to give it "some progressive shape."]'"

*By 1963 all the texts which wound up in the published Silmarillion had already been done, except for the very late revisions to 'Of Maeglin.' Tolkien wrote very, very little First Age narrative after his retirement in 1959; and of course in all its essentials the book pre-dated The Lord of the Rings. Shippey got this backwards in '82, before HoME was available.

[Beanamir of Gondor]

Aha. Rebuke duly accepted, William. to me for forgetting the context of the next page: I swear I read it. So the problem, essentially, was that LotR readers had fabricated their own histories of ME, having only ever caught glimpses of the past, and Tolkien was worried that by publishing the Silmarillion, his account of the history of ME might clash with what readers had imagined. Not the same argument: similar, but not the same.

In all honesty, that is a worrisome concept. Beren and Luthien were different in the Silm than I'd imagined them after hearing Aragorn's song in FotR.

Still, even if Tolkien never said that himself (about readers not wanting to know the history of ME), it is a valid question, is it not? Many readers of "The Hobbit" are perfectly content to lay back and never read further. Even more readers of LotR are content to quit with Aragorn's coronation, and go no further back than the bare details of the First Age coupled with the events of the Third Age--all those people who say, "Sure, I saw the movies and read the book, but I don't think I could read all those historical contexts."

I think I've rambled off the thread subject. Ugh.