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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.
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In your own words
I'd guess that the Sil has too much "elven anthropology" and not enough mystery.
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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.
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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.
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Oh, and thanks for moving this thread onto something really worth thinking about.
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I'm honored.
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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.
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There's the longing.
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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'....
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There it is again.