Smith of Wootton Major in Middle Earth?

[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.

[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.