Smith of Wootton Major in Middle Earth?

[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?

[Bêthberry]

Interesting synchronicity as I have just read SWM in the extended edition. In the essay about the story Tolkien explains the physical relationship of faerie with Wootton Major: they are in the same geographical area, as Tolkien says his symbol for Faerie is the forest, which is on the outskirts of the town.

The essay's first sentence is

Originally Posted by Tolkien

This short tale is not an "allegory", tough it is capable of course of allegorical interpretations at certain points. It is a 'Fairy Story', of the kind in which beings that may be called 'fairies' or 'elves' play a part and are associates in action with human people, and are regarded as having a 'real' existence, that is one in their own right and independent of human imagination and invention. It is cast in an imaginary (but English) countryside, before the advent of power-machinery. . .

Dimitra Fimi, in Tolkien, Race and Cultural History offers a very interesting study of Tolkien's changing concepts of fairie, from BoLT through all the various forms of the Legendarium in HoMe, to SWM. Tolkien began within the tradition of fairy in Victorian popular culture but moved to his concept of Elves before attempting in SWM to write a story about how any experience of faerie is valuable. Worth looking up her book--she's a very fine contemporary scholar.

[mark12_30]

Bb, I did not know about "SWM in the extended edition". I have been, apparently, out of touch.... v/r, --Helen

[Bêthberry]

I've just read it myself, Helen not two weeks ago (which is why I think it is interesting you and I both were the tale). The edition is edited by Verlyn Flieger and was published in 2005 and includes Pauline Baynes' illustrations from 1967. It also has photocopies of some of the manuscript pages of the "hybrid"draft (typescript and manuscript), as well as the history of the tale's genesis in the draft introduction to The Golden Key.

There's some fascinating stuff in the essay on Faerie and Love.

[mark12_30]

I don't thhink you've contradicted me. I said that Faerie offers glimpses of eternal truth and beauty. If Faerie were heaven (which isn't what I said) there would be no need for it.

That said, it would take a real curmudgeon to be so unaffected by those glimpses of eternal truth and beauty that his soul would remain unaffected.

[davem]

Originally Posted by mark12_30

I don't thhink you've contradicted me. I said that Faerie offers glimpses of eternal truth and beauty.

Indeed, but the power & purpose of Faerie (if it can be said to possess such) is in transforming the creation (or at least our perception/experience of it), as opposed to offering a means to transcend it.

[mark12_30]

The “consolation” of fairy-tales has another aspect than the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires. Far more important is the consolation of the Happy Ending. Almost I would venture to assert that all complete fairy-stories must have it…I will call it Eucatastrophe [literally, “good catastrophe”]. The eucatastrophic tale is the true form of fairy-tale, and its highest function. The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending, or more correctly of the good catastrophe, of the sudden joyous “turn” does not deny the existence of dycatastrophe, of sorrow and failure; the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will), universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief…In such stories when the sudden “turn” comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart’s desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through.

It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any specially beautiful fairy-story were found to be “primarily” true, its narrative to be history...Probably every writer making a secondary world, a fantasy, every sub-creator, wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality…The peculiar quality of “joy” in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth.

The answer to this question [“is it true?”] that I gave at first was (quite rightly): “If you have built your little world well, yes: it is true in that world.” That is enough for the artist…But in the “eucatastrophe” we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater – it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world.

The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels - peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: “mythical” in their perfect, self-contained significance; among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy...There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many skeptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. The joy which the “turn” in the fairy-story gives…has the very taste of primary truth…It looks forward to the Great Eucatastrophe. The Christian joy, the Gloria, is of the same kind; but it is pre-eminently (infinitely, if our capacity were not finite) high and joyous. But this story is supreme, and it is true.

-J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories"

I coined the word 'eucatastrophe': the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce). And I was there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth, your whole nature chained in material cause and effect, the chain of death, feels a sudden relief as if a major limb out of joint had suddenly snapped back. It perceives – if the story has literary 'truth' on the second plane (....) – that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made. And I concluded by saying that the Resurrection was the greatest 'eucatastrophe' possible in the greatest Fairy Story – and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love.

– -J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter 89