Smith of Wootton Major in Middle Earth?

[littlemanpoet]

Reading the Letters of Tolkien, I came across an interesting description in Letter #131 (one of the longest in the book). It said:

In those days [the Númenóreans] would come amongst Wild Men an almost divine benefactors, bringing gifts of arts and knowledge, and passing away again - leaving many legends behind of kings and gods out of the sunset.

There's a little episode in Smith of Wootton Major that this sparked to my memory (accompanied by an amazing Pauline Baynes illustration):

[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.

There is enough difference so that my snappy thread title is revealed as a bald attempt to get your attention.

But if Middle Earth is part of the Realm of Fairy, who knows? Is this just an example of one of those common themes that haunted Tolkien's mind? What think you?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I'll need more time to ponder this interesting question, lmp, but my first spontaneous thoughts are these: The Sea is the passage-way from one to the other. The Elven mariners in Smith come over the Sea, the Sea separates Middle-earth from Valinor, which can be reached only by finding the Straight Path, so could we speculate that there is another Straight Path somewhere in the Sea between Valinor and our Earth? Of course, according to Tolkien's original plan, Middle-earth is our earth, only very long ago or in another time dimension. That raises the question of time travelling by Sea, perhaps?

[davem]

bearing the white ships that return from battles on the Dark Marches of which men know nothing.

Few quick notes:

If the Elven mariners are 'coming home' their home must be Faerie itself, where Smith encounters them.

If 'men know nothing' of the battles on the Dark Marches then those battles cannot take place in the human world - they must take place 'elsewhere'. This means that there is a 'third' place - not the human world & not Faerie (because the Elven mariners are returning to Faerie. 'Marches' are borderlands (like the Welsh Marches, the borderlands between England & Wales) - which implies that Faerie borders on some other realm & there is a territorial dispute of some kind going on. A further implication would be that, as the Marches are 'Dark' then the battle is some kind of war between Light & Darkness - or more precisely between 'Light' (their swords shone and their spears glinted and a piercing light was in their eyes) & 'Unlight'.

So, we seem to be given a glimpse of an on-going cosmic battle, fought between Elves on the one side & ...what?.. on the other.

[littlemanpoet]

What makes you think they're Elves, davem? I always thought they were Men.

Actually, your deductive approach to the quoted text seems, well, vain. The text is evocative, meant to evoke an amazing moment in Fairy; unless you are playing detective regarding the title of this thread. In which case, I tempted you, so "mea culpa".

[davem]

Originally Posted by LmP

What makes you think they're Elves, davem? I always thought they were Men.

Well, I know you gave the passage as:

The eleven mariners were tall and terrible;

but Tolkien did write Elven - as far as I remember - don't have the book to hand.

On the other hand, the idea of such a specific number of warriors being given adds a certain charm to the incident....

But I think they must have been Elves, given the light in their eyes & their shining swords....

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I do have the book to hand, and it is "elven", so the mariners are definitely Elves. Sorry to burst the interesting bubble about a specific number. From the context, we can assume that both their goal at home and that of their journey to the Dark Marches, where they fought, are located in Faery, since Smith was in Faery when he saw them there. So the connection between the Elves and our world is not through their journey. It is Smith himself who makes the transition from real life to Faery, by way of the star, and he made the journey by foot or by horse.

On closer scrutiny, we therefore have no additional Straight Path, no doorway from one world to the other, no time transition - though it would have been interesting to explore those ideas more...

[littlemanpoet]

Well, davem, if Tolkien wrote Elven, then my book has a misprint. I do find it interesting that eleven is the only number that has the word elven within it.

Perhaps charm is a satsifactory answer for why eleven. The question was percolating in my mind this morning, and then I read your post. Why not twelve, which is such a fraught number in terms of symbol? Or ten for the same reason? And it occurred to me that that could have been reason enough to avoid them. JRRT had good instincts, to say the least.

I'm interested in the recurrence of the theme, though. Smith's reaction is abject fear. He is fortunate that the warriors merely pass over him; which is to say, probably, that they did not count him worth their notice. But this "high and noble warriors coming ashore" thing (not to mention technically advanced?); could it be an English thing? A remnant of the trauma of the Norman Invasion, perhaps? Sheer speculation, I grant you, but I'm having fun with it.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

We cross-posted, LMP - "eleven" is definitely a misprint in your book. See my above post.

[littlemanpoet]

Ah well. I'll leave the post as is. It does raise a further question....

[littlemanpoet]

I've been reading a chapter a day (more or less) in The Hobbit and I came across the following aside where the wood-elves are introduced: speaking of the wood-elves:

They differed from the High Elves of the West, and were more dangerous and less wise. For most of them (together with their scattered relations in the hills and mountains) were descended from the ancient tribes that never went to Faerie in the West. There the Light-elves and the Deep-elves and the Sea-elves went and lived for ages, and grew fairer and wiser and more learned, and invented their magic and their cunning craft in the making of beautiful and marvellous things, before some came back into the Wide World

So the Light-elves are the Vanyar, the Deep-elves are the Noldor, and the Sea-elves are the Teleri.

But that's not my main point in bringing up the quote: Valinor is called Faerie!

Way out on a limb here, but it's a nice limb .... .... suppose the Star gave Smith the unique permission to go to Valinor!

[Bêthberry]

Or Fairie came to be called Valinor, lmp

Well done! This is a fascinating observation and serves to suggest also the merit in having a Chapter by Chapter reading club for The Hobbit when the one on LotR concludes.

[littlemanpoet]

Either way, Bêthberry, Alf would therefore be Manwë, and the Queen of Faerie would be Varda! Such company Smith kept! Not that I'm convinced of this, but it's fun to imagine it this way.

[HerenIstarion]

Is this just an example of one of those common themes that haunted Tolkien's mind

yes

[davem]

Originally Posted by LMP

But that's not my main point in bringing up the quote: Valinor is called Faerie!

We have to remember that TH was not intended to be part of the Legendarium, & Tolkien merely made use of certain elements from it. Quite possibly he was using them merely to give background to the story, without intending them to be analysed so deeply. Of course, TH wasn't the only story in which he did this.
There's an interesting note to the text of Roverandom:

the shadowy seas ... and the light of Faery upon the waves
The earliest text has: It was the whale who took them to the Bay of Fairyland beyond the Magic Isles, & they saw far off in the West the Shores of Fairyland.#, & the Mountains of the Last Land & the Light of Fairyland upon the waves.' I Tolkien's mythology the Shadowy Seas & the Magic Isles hide & guard Aman (Elvenhome, & the home of the Valar or Gods) from the rest of the world.

The final text continues:

Roverandom thought he caught a glimpse of the city of the Elves on the green hill beneath the mountains, a glint of white far away; but Uin (the great whale of the story) dived again so suddenly that he could not be sure. If he was right, he is one of the few creaures, on two legs or four, who can walk about our own lands & say that they have glimpsed that other land, however far away.
'I should catch it, if this was found out!' said Uin. Noone from the Outer Lands is supposed ever to come here; & few ever do now. Mum's the word!'

While TH did get taken up into the Legendarium, Roverandom did not, & Smith, I believe, was not meant to be included either. Having said that, I think it would be easier to include Roverandom in the mythology then it would Smith - after all the mentions of Fairyland/'Valinor' & its geography in that work are more explicit than in Smith (or even in TH come to that). Of course, if we did include Roverandom then it would make it a bit easier to explain the talking animals in TH & LotR!

[littlemanpoet]

davem:

Smith, I believe, was not meant to be included either.

Oh, I know.

But imagine if it were.... Who were those Elven warriors that came out of the silent sea? Feanor and his sons plus some hangers on, just after the kinslaying?

Yeah, I know it's a really, really steep reach, but heck why not?

Of course, if we did include Roverandom then it would make it a bit easier to explain the talking animals in TH & LotR!

Having just read the chapters on Beorn and the Spiders, I really don't have any trouble with the talking beasts. They just feel like they fit in The Hobbit. And that Fox in the early part of the FotR, I always loved that little inclusion. It just helped to make Middle Earth that much more of a place I want to go.

H=I:Is this just an example of one of those common themes that haunted Tolkien's mind?

yes

Aw, do ya really think so? (Har har.)

[Findegil]

I also like to speculate who were the Elven warriors. The benefit of it is that we might be able to determine the placement of Smith within the timescale of Middle-Earth and thus get some further idea if the inclusion of Smith into the legendarium is likely or not.

If we assume that Smith did visit Valinor, than the only elvenwarriors coming back to it were the Vanyar and Noldor of Finarfin after the final defeat of Morgoth. Smithwould thus be placed around the end of the First Age and the beginning of the Second.
I doubt much if the Queen of Faery is Varda and Alf Manwe. It would rather fit the story to take some elvish leaders here. But the only story that would come to mind is that of the Lost Tales in a very forced combination with some other source: If Ingwe died in the War of Wrath (as he did in LT) and Ingwiel his son did follow Telemektar in watching the sky against Melkors return than Alf could be his son that was call back to Valinor to take up the kingdom.

But we can not be sure if it was to Valinor that Smith did go. The geography he described is not fully consistent with what we know about Valinor or any other part of Arda described by Tolkien in detail. In a place the land of Faery in Smith is seen as a isle. This could be a hint to Tol Eressea in the later Ages when it was again inhabited by the Elves from Beleriand. But I remember no event in the history of Arda where elvenwarriors of Tol Eressea would take part.

An other isle that comes to mind is that of Balar. Between the year of the Sun 473 of the First Age and the end of that Age the isle was inhabited by Elves, while an approached to it would be possible to nearly uninhabited lands. Further on it was told that Círdan's people made swift landings up and down the coast before they were driven from Birthombar and Eglarest, it seems possible therefore that what Smith saw were warriors coming back to Balar after such a ride.
Further on we could also in this light interpret the message of the Queen to Alf (read on carefully, what comes now is based on the speculation just made):
Who could be called king living at Balar? Non else than Gil-galad. We do not hear that he ever had a wife but the Queen of Faery must not necessarily be his wife.
If we take a some what forced interpretation we could say that with the answer that Smith got when he asked were the king was ('He has not told us.') was meant king Turgon. Thus after the fall of Gondolin became known at Balar, the Queen of Faery - Orodreth wife, the mother of Gil-galad would be nearest to this possition - called for Gil-galad to come back since he was now the king ('The time has come.').

Respectfully
Findegil

[mark12_30]

Monster and the critics:

"...But from the top of that tower the man had been able to look out upon the sea."

....Novalis:

Life is no dream; but it ought to become one, and perhaps it will.

The Sea Bell:

Trembling it lay in my wet hand.

[littlemanpoet]

Very, very emblematic and enigmatic, mark12_30. I'm too dense to make a whole lot out of what you're quoting. Could you explicate?

[mark12_30]

Maybe.

Smith of Wootton Major seems to me to be one of Tolkien's more dreamlike works; not that it is meant to all signify "And he woke up and lo it was just a dream"-- but Tolkien put a lot of stock in dreams, and wrote about them within his works as well as wrote the works because of the dreams he himself had (Alkallabeth.)

To me the dreamlike quality of Smith is akin to the dreamlike quality of Frodo's Dreme in Adventures of Tom Bombadil, or (in a less serious vein) the dreamlike quality of 'The Man In The Moon Came Down Too Soon'. They are tales about wanderers feeling very much out of their element, very much vulnerable, and actually in some danger (the danger varies from piece to piece.) But Smith's vision (did he really 'see' them? Was it a dream, a vision, or outside of time, or ...) ... Smith's vision of the "Eleven men" (sic) reminds me of Frodo's Dreme and of The Man In The Moon much more than it reminds me of the Sil, for example.

From the LOTR and the Sil and Tolkien's later works, Valinor is no dream; it has soil, trees, shores, sand, feasts. Reading about it feels very real and solid and tangible. But Smith's Faery is not; it is shifting, ethereal, dreamlike. So is the land that Frodo nightmares his way through. And The Man In The Moon's sojourn among men is humorously nightmarish too.

How would I compare Smith's Faerie to Valinor-- Not to the 'real thing'. I would compare it to Frodo's dreams of Valinor (in Tom Bombadil's house, and other of his dreams) , and perhaps to some of his foreshadowings of Valiinor (in Lorien, or in Rivendell); those times when he was enchanted or in a dreamlike state.

And yet (going back to the "eleven men"-- somehow it strikes me that Tolkien would have found that fascinating, and this discussion of the eleven elven mannish men very enjoyable) -- in dreams, if what we dream is true, it is both foggy and distilled, indistinct and purified. Life is too often mundane, so that we forget to touch, or even seek, the truth; but in dreams, we may perchance find it even when we are too distracted to seek it while we are awake. Frodo's dreams are like this. And Smith's venture into Faerie is like that; he leaves the mundane and searches for what is pure and true, even if he can't really bring *it* home with him back to the mundane; still *he* comes back changed.

And so, Novalis: Life is no dream (it is mundane, and we all too rarely touch the truth); but life ought to become less mundane and the truth shine through it more (eucatastrophe, revelation...) and perhaps someday it will.

There's a whole 'nother side of my thoughts: regarding the tower, the sea, and Tolkien's own dream of the drowning of Numenor, and how that all relates to the way he treats dreams, and how dreams so often include the sea; there it is.

[littlemanpoet]

I'm moved by your post, mark12_30. Not only do you point out a valuable distinction, but you effectively evoke that to which you assign greater value.

So why is it that The Silmarillion seems so ..... like looking through a spyglass at something real but remote ..... while Smith seems, like you said, as if I'm looking inside my own dreams? Same author; different technique? I suppose so, but I doubt that technique is at the heart of it.

Does The Sil convey truth with the same power that Smith does? I don't think so. I've rarely been moved by The Sil (cannot include Valaquenta, etc. - Tolkien didn't); but I am moved deeply every time I re-read Smith.

Oh, and thanks for moving this thread onto something really worth thinking about.

[davem]

Don't know if either of you have read Flieger's A Question of Time, but in that work she devotes a great deal of time examining Tolkien's use of dreams in his stories. They seem to be of two kinds: there are 'symbolic' dreams - like Sam's in the 'Crossroads' chapter we've recently been discussing, & then there are dreams in which the dreamer enters another 'deeper' kind of reality - like Frodo's dream in the House of Bombadil, or Merry's dream in the Barrow. The first kind are 'subjective', what Jung would call 'little' dreams, the others are 'objective', 'big' dreams.

Tolkien's use of dreams in his 'time travel' stories, Lost Road & Notion Club Papers (where his ideas on the nature of dream probably find their fullest expression) is especially interesting, as the characters enter into the minds of people from the past in their dreams.

From this poin tof view, it doesn't really matter whether Smith 'dreamed' his adventures in Faerie, as Faerie would be another reality, & the means by which he enters - Fay Star or 'dream'- are less important than what happens once he gets there. There's an interesting discussion in Notion Club Papers on 'scientifiction' (ie 'sci-fi') & the methods used to get characters to other planets. One of the characters claims he finds spaceships unconvincing as a means to get to another world, & prefers dream (if I remember it right). He also suggests (& it is perhaps suggestive in more ways than one) that one way of getting a character to another world is 'incarnation' - ie, they could be born into that world.

Like LMP I've always been more moved by Smith than by the Sil. In some ways Smith affects me more deeply than even LotR. There is a sense with Smith that I've only just missed that world, that things were like that not so very long ago. With LotR, The Sill & The Hobbit there's a sense "Of old, (unhappy?), far-off things,. And battles long ago;. - not the perfect quote for what I mean, but I hope you pick up on what I'm getting at. Middle earth has long since passed away, & so there is that sense of

like looking through a spyglass at something real but remote

But with Smith its almost as if the world of that story has only very recently passed away, that if only I'd been born a few years earlier I would have lived there myself. That makes it more poignant for me - I feel like I just missed that 'train'....

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by lmp

Same author; different technique? I suppose so, but I doubt that technique is at the heart of it.

It could have something to do with it. I've been thinking how different the worlds of Smith and LotR etc are. To get to Middle Earth or Valinor all we have to do is pick up the books and we are there straight away, there is in fact a Straight Path for us. But to get to Smith's Faery we have to first travel through his world. And that in itself is a world unlike our own where bakers make fabulous cakes for the luckiest of the children at the party. Smith's Faery is harder to get to and harder to hold on to because it is one step removed from us.

That's like our dreams, too. To get to them we have to step into sleep, another world away from our conscious thoughts. Sometimes this is a good thing when we have bad dreams, but it can leave us feeling like we can't quite touch something wonderful when we have vivid dreams of places we have never been to or see people we will never talk to or meet.

[littlemanpoet]

Don't know if either of you have read Flieger's A Question of Time, but in that work she devotes a great deal of time examining Tolkien's use of dreams in his stories. They seem to be of two kinds: there are 'symbolic' dreams - like Sam's in the 'Crossroads' chapter we've recently been discussing, & then there are dreams in which the dreamer enters another 'deeper' kind of reality - like Frodo's dream in the House of Bombadil, or Merry's dream in the Barrow. The first kind are 'subjective', what Jung would call 'little' dreams, the others are 'objective', 'big' dreams.

You may be interested, davem, that this thread has been experimenting with precisely the objective, big dreams. An example would be posts # 689 & 690. Really, they are just idle attempts, but you may find them mildly worth the distraction.

Lalwendë, you are pointing, I think, to the technique that I call "transitional fantasy"; i.e., starting in our world and moving to Faerie. Except that you're saying that the "our world" Tolkien describes is already at one remove. The remove, which I think is late medieval European life, is nevertheless somehow "home". You say that stepping into dream is a world away from our conscious thoughts. I submit to you that our conscious thoughts are not true "home". When we move into sleep, we are more in touch with our real selves than when wakeful; that's how it feels to me when reading Smith; thus, when we move with Smith into Faerie, it feels just, barely just, out of reach. As if, could I just find a star somehow, some way, I could get there.

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

So why is it that The Silmarillion seems so ..... like looking through a spyglass at something real but remote ..... while Smith seems, like you said, as if I'm looking inside my own dreams? Same author; different technique? I suppose so, but I doubt that technique is at the heart of it.

In your own words I'd guess that the Sil has too much "elven anthropology" and not enough mystery.

Does The Sil convey truth with the same power that Smith does? I don't think so. I've rarely been moved by The Sil (cannot include Valaquenta, etc. - Tolkien didn't); but I am moved deeply every time I re-read Smith.

The word "trespassing" comes to mind. (Remember the salmon swimming into the hot spring at the bottom of the lake? The narrator was out of his element, and you loved it, as I fondly recall.) Smith is essentially trespassing; Frodo is frequently trespassing; by contrast the Sil narrator has every right to be there. So where's the mystery that creates thirst in the soul? I suspect that what moves you is your desire for transcendance-- and that hunger is best whetted by mystery.

Perhaps the Sil creates regret, longing for the good old days, rather than the longing to pierce and percieve a mystery.

Oh, and thanks for moving this thread onto something really worth thinking about.

I'm honored.

Originally Posted by Lalwende

That's like our dreams, too. To get to them we have to step into sleep, another world away from our conscious thoughts. Sometimes this is a good thing when we have bad dreams, but it can leave us feeling like we can't quite touch something wonderful when we have vivid dreams of places we have never been to or see people we will never talk to or meet.

There's the longing.

Originally Posted by davem

But with Smith its almost as if the world of that story has only very recently passed away, that if only I'd been born a few years earlier I would have lived there myself. That makes it more poignant for me - I feel like I just missed that 'train'....

There it is again.

[Aiwendil]

Littlemanpoet wrote:

Does The Sil convey truth with the same power that Smith does? I don't think so. I've rarely been moved by The Sil (cannot include Valaquenta, etc. - Tolkien didn't); but I am moved deeply every time I re-read Smith.

Davem wrote:

Like LMP I've always been more moved by Smith than by the Sil.

Mark12_30 wrote:

I'd guess that the Sil has too much "elven anthropology" and not enough mystery.

I find this very interesting. My reaction is quite different; I have always found the Silmarillion to be much more powerful and more moving than Smith. I wonder why it is that we have such different reactions to the two works.

It seems to me that the fundamental difference between Smith and the Silmarillion is that the former is a work about fantasy while the latter is fantasy. This is partly because of the difference between the "transitional fantasy" of Smith and the "immersive fantasy" of the Silmarillion; but it is deeper than that. Smith seems almost to be a literary treatise presented in the form of a story. We touched on this in the Canonicity thread; the word I used there was "meta-fantasy". In my view, Smith sketches out the requirements for a succesful work of fantasy story-telling, but it does not, in itself, fulfill those requirements. That isn't to say that I don't like it, or that I think it's unsuccesful - rather, that whatever it is, it isn't really a faerie story in the sense that Tolkien's other works are.

The Silmarillion, on the other hand, is a kind of total faerie story. The immersion here is more complete than that in a work like LotR; for in the Silmarillion the story is the world. The story begins when the world begins, and the faerie setting is built up not merely in aid of the story, but as the story.

I am curious regarding other people's opinions of Smith vs. the Silmarillion. 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.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

I am curious regarding other people's opinions of Smith vs. the Silmarillion. 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.

Oh, now this is a challenge I cannot resist. Must go off and reread Smith and cogitate. *waves with gauntlet gently held*

[davem]

Don't know if anyone else is aware of this, but Verlyn Flieger has a new book coming out on Smith in September time. Not much info at the moment - this on her website:http://www.mythus.com/smith.html

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

It seems to me that the fundamental difference between Smith and the Silmarillion is that the former is a work about fantasy while the latter is fantasy.

There are two matters you raise to show why the Sil is more powerful to you than SWOM: transitional versus immersive fantasy (where did these terms originate?), and whether SWOM is more a treatise or more a story.

It is known that SOWM was begun by Tolkien as an illustration of a point he was making in an abortive preface to a republication of George MacDonald's The Golden Key. It is also known that SOWM had a life of its own and transcended its original purpose.

In the interest of saved time for those (such as myself) who have not read the Canonicity thread, could you (or someone) provide a link to the points you reference, if you don't mind, in regard to meta-fantasy and the requirements of fantasy?

[Felagund]

Having never read Smith I cannot post with much authority, but 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 as (Finrod Felagund, for example. Or Beren), come to such bad ends. Even the tidings of hope are frought with sadness, such as Earëndil's coming into the West, but being never to retrun amongst Men, whom he loves, and following his wife into the "immortality" of the Firstborn. The Silmarillion is probably one of the overall most depressing reads ever, yet it to creates a sense of longing... I never know what it is I long for when I'm done reading it, I just know it's there.

"Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures they have sworn to pursue."

[Aiwendil]

Littlemanpoet wrote:

n the interest of saved time for those (such as myself) who have not read the Canonicity thread, could you (or someone) provide a link to the points you reference, if you don't mind, in regard to meta-fantasy and the requirements of fantasy?

The discussion of Smith in the canonicity thread is on page six.

There are two matters you raise to show why the Sil is more powerful to you than SWOM: transitional versus immersive fantasy (where did these terms originate?), and whether SWOM is more a treatise or more a story.

I certainly didn't mean to suggest that I was offering a proof that the Silmarillion is more powerful than Smith. Rather, I noted that in my experience the Silmarillion is the more moving work; then, in an effort to get at the reasons for the differing views of the two works, I tried to give an account of their chief differences.

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'm still very interested to hear where others come down in the Silmarillion vs. Smith issue.

[littlemanpoet]

Thanks, Aiwendil, for the link.
I've scanned through it once, and I think
that I haven't got near deep enough
into the very packed segment of stuff
in about as deep a thread
as, at Barrowdowns, I've read.

[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.

[Bêthberry]

So much to contemplate here and reply to! If I may, I shall begin at the beginning and see where the currents lead me.

littlemanpoet quotes from that most fascinating letter, # 131, Tolkien's very long explanation to Milton Waldman about not simply the interdependence of LotR and TheSilm but of the generation of Tolkien's habits of thought and creation. I have always wished that Carpenter had not expurgated the letter: knowledge that something has been left out has always made me curious. Not to say that Carpenter mispresented anything, of course. The absence makes me fonder!

So much for my preamble. I am well aware that a goodly part of the discussion here at the Downs has been to consider this same question of the interdependence of Tolkien's works and the internal consistency of the Legendarium. Much jocularity has ensued, of the sort which I suspect Tolkien himself would highly approve. And of course I have approved also.

Yet picking through for strands for inconsistencies and logical conundrums has never quite been my (tea) bag, any more than has the theme of defining Reality/reality or Truth/truth, perhaps in part because when we link Middle-earth (or Tolkien's sub-creation) too closely to the 'primary world'--our world--the whole delight of fairey begins to unravel. This quotation about the Numenorians is exactly a tempest in this particular (tea) pot.

In those days [the Númenóreans] would come amongst Wild Men an almost divine benefactors, bringing gifts of arts and knowledge, and passing away again - leaving many legends behind of kings and gods out of the sunset.

You see, I live in a land where Europeans came upon "Wild Men", aboriginal tribes who are now referred to as "First Nation Peoples." And the terrible part of that misadventure is that the Europeans were anything but divine benefactors. And even worse, the Europeans by and large, at least in their legal and official status, did everything they could to erradicate the legends and tales and myths of those First Nation. Potlach was banned and participation in it made illegal on the West Coast. Children were sent far from home to "residential schools" where they could be "englightened" away from the supposed pernicious influence of their parent's primitive culture and made to embrace the European faith. So, for me, this question of "Truth/truth" or "primary/subcreated world" tends to result in a highly tannic, over steeped brew. I don't want to have to choose between birch or pine tea, sweetened with maple syrup, and PG Tips.

I don't want Smith to be part of Silmarillion Arda because parts of it, when I view them in the harsh sunlight of my primary world, begin to fade. This is why I laugh so sardonically when I see elves joking that all men look alike, for that gives to the elves the sorry, blinkered, parochial, fearful perspective of the western world and all it must atone for. I want to stir through the loose leaves of Tolkien's fairey without some of the cultural baggage. I want to revere his appreciation of that space where imagination is whetted and explored for its own sake and benefit. I want it to remain, as Aiwendil has called it,

the character of a meditation on the nature of fantasy literature, as opposed to a work of fantasy literature.

Perhaps for me The Silm is not fairey? Would I go so far as to say this? Well, however that may or may not be, this meditation in Smith has for me the mystery which Helen identified, and the power of such a mystery.

The word "trespassing" comes to mind. (Remember the salmon swimming into the hot spring at the bottom of the lake? The narrator was out of his element, and you loved it, as I fondly recall.) Smith is essentially trespassing; Frodo is frequently trespassing; by contrast the Sil narrator has every right to be there. So where's the mystery that creates thirst in the soul? I suspect that what moves you is your desire for transcendance-- and that hunger is best whetted by mystery.

Perhaps the Sil creates regret, longing for the good old days, rather than the longing to pierce and percieve a mystery.

Trespass, to go beyond the normal boundaries and borders, and come back with greater knowledge of an unexpected mystery, lies at the heart of faerie, which is less a long ago world of stark contrasts and more the realm of imaginative creation where eucatastrophe is possible (not that it isn't possible in the primary world, but that it doesn't happen often enough, or at least not as often as in faerie). However, The Silm doesn't do this for me.

But Aiwendil also posited a theory about Smith and The Silm.

I am curious regarding other people's opinions of Smith vs. the Silmarillion. 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.

Now, I am one of those who prefers Smith to The Silm but I am also one of those who is far more cautious about thinking we can ascertain authorial presence or intention. The text's the feeder wherein we catch the conscience of the reader.

It is very, very tempting to read Smith as an allegory of Tolkien's own experience as a writer of fairey. But I wonder if this is not a believed effect of the story's structure and conventions. (Is there any kind of admission in the Letters and if so, how is it to be taken? with lemon or sugar?) The Wootton Major story follows Smith's own personal experiences far more closely than The Silm follows the personal feelings of any of the elven characters of the Legendarium. Smith is a story of personal feeling and experience and as such it is closer to the kind of narrative that has held sway in our culture for the last two hundred years or so, "realistic fiction" which examined in psychological detail character's minds. It is tempting to relate this personal view of Smith with Tolkien, but what evidence do we have for equating Smith's experience with Tolkien's? Maybe we want to think this is Tolkien because we want to find some place where we are certain he speaks to us, the reader? We want to know him and so we resurrect him in those places of his fiction which give us a sense of intimacy with the character.

The Silm on the other hand is written in a different kind of style, the style of ancient mythologies and hero legends. It has a distance from the kind of emotive feeling we have come to expect in fiction. Yet who is to say that Tolkien did not in fact create "himself" as an omniscient authority, speaking/writing a world into being but withdrawing from that world? Why do we not say, here is Tolkien the artist telling us about the artist's omnisicent control?

From my personal perspective, The Silm never leaves me wanting more. Admittedly, I am a late comer to its appreciation and often early on used it encyclopedically rather than for its story value. I mined it, dwarven-like, but let us hope not so deeply as to raise balrogs.

I keep harping on story as construct, as convention, as work of art which is intended to make us feel as if. Perhaps this is because every one of Tolkien's texts takes a different style, different form of narrator/narration. It is almost as if he explores in each tale a different kind of story form in early literature--all the kinds for which he hungered himself. Let's look back at Letter # 131.

But once upon a time [oh, that recurrent opening of all things Fairey, which Tolkien himself spoke so highly of!] ... I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story... I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. . . .

Of course, such an overwhelming purpose did not develop all at once. The mere stories were the thing. They arose in my mind as 'given' things, and as they came, separately, so too the links grew.

The realm of legend which Tolkien hungered for was various and vast, and so his stories themselves are various, and not all of the same piece, despite the fascinating, overarching Legendarium which supplies the bag for the various mixtures of tea leaves. I tend to think that what we have as The Silm was a stupendous map of the kind Tolkien sketched for LotR, his very own Encyclopedia of Arda, out of which he drew elements for his fascination with fairey. Those with a taste for such anatomies will find it incredibly rich. Those with a taste for something smaller and more personal might prefer the smaller stories along the way. Tolkien's work is heterogeneous, just as is the Bible and each story has something unique to commend itself.

But who knows. Perhaps because I am not especially anamoured of elves I can't appreciate the story told mainly from their point of view.

Cuppa anyone?

[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::