Minor Works -- 3 - Smith of Wootton Major

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

... I am not aware of there being any "modern" or, contrarily, "restoration" movements at least as far as liturgy is concerned around that time yet, that would fall only towards 1960s and the Second Vatican Council, but perhaps someone specifically well-versed in Roman Catholic history would know whether there had been some minor attempts at changes already back when the Smith was written).

Smith was written in the late 60s, so Tolkien was no doubt aware of Vatican II.

I still hold with my general approach that the plot, them, and characters, and milieu are all of a piece, and this story, like most of Tolkien's writings, steers clear of overt religion.

As you mention, Legate, the gargoyles and such are a cultural element and need not be a religious one.

[Bêthberry]

One of the things I have been contemplating as I reread this, is why Fairie has to be limited to just one human with access at a time.

Why does only Smith have access to Fairie and not anyone else? His family knows of it but never joins him. Despite his friendships with the C.B.S. and the Inklings, did he feel that he alone had access to Fairie, no one else?

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

One of the things I have been contemplating as I reread this, is why Fairie has to be limited to just one human with access at a time.

Why does only Smith have access to Fairie and not anyone else? His family knows of it but never joins him. Despite his friendships with the C.B.S. and the Inklings, did he feel that he alone had access to Fairie, no one else?

Given how Smith grew out a small story meant to illustrate something in Macdonald even as it was turning out Tolkien didn't think Macdonald had things right, and given how he quibbled over Lewis's fictions (the Williams influence on That Hideous Strength, all of Narnia), I don't think it'd be inaccurate to guess that Tolkien in the 1960s--long after the TCBS and even the Inklings--did think of faerie as something fundamentally private.

Even in the TCBS days (his greatest experience of literary like-mindedness), I think there's enough in the surviving letters to show that each of the lads had a different literary vision/desire. They were each transfixed by the others' and were privileged to been shared with them, but I think there's ample evidence in the letters that although there was a creative welter from their interactions, each of them who created still created alone--i.e. they were made for their friends and because of their friends, but nothing approaches being co-authored.

And, of course, that's BEFORE the TCBS gets halved and Tolkien goes into his post-war life (and the bulk of his literary career). As an autobiographical bit, I think entering faerie alone is well-supported.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

One of the things I have been contemplating as I reread this, is why Fairie has to be limited to just one human with access at a time.

Why does only Smith have access to Fairie and not anyone else? His family knows of it but never joins him. Despite his friendships with the C.B.S. and the Inklings, did he feel that he alone had access to Fairie, no one else?

Originally Posted by Formendacil

... I don't think it'd be inaccurate to guess that Tolkien in the 1960s--long after the TCBS and even the Inklings--did think of faerie as something fundamentally private.

I agree with Formendacil about Smith alone having access to Faerie, but I quibble over the word 'private.' Smith didn't have a private privilege or right to Faerie any more than any other citizen of Wootton, even old Nokes. His privilege came by means of the Star.

Hence, what is the Star? It has to be more than symbol. It seems to function like a key, but not only. Without the Star, Smith has no right or access to Faerie. It gives Smith entry and some protection. The Star comes from Faerie. How did Smith get it? It was a gift. Smith is bequeathed the privilege, by no right or skill or characteristic of his own. Who is the giver? Both Alf and the Queen of Faerie, as far as can be told.

Why make such a gift? Do the King and Queen of Faerie care to gift humanity with a taste of the riches of Faerie? Apparently, and why not? We need beauty, and they seem to know it. But with beauty comes heartache, and so the Star comes with a price.

Back to Bethberry's question. I think that some kind of entrace to Faerie is not necessarily singular, one at a time, and not private, but it is a privilege, and the "Star" given to one person may be something other than a star, and that person alone will know it for what it is. I'm speaking more in general as to my experience as a reader and experiencer of Tolkien's gift of a glimpse of Faerie to us all. Our experience feels to be at least at one remove compared to Smith, and maybe more.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

I agree with Formendacil about Smith alone having access to Faerie, but I quibble over the word 'private.' Smith didn't have a private privilege or right to Faerie any more than any other citizen of Wootton, even old Nokes. His privilege came by means of the Star.

I suppose, without having defined any terms, I can't complain of inciting any quibbling!

By "private," I meant "not shared." Of course, even that it not strictly accurate: the same star is passed on. But to the person in possession of that gift, the experiences it granted is something received alone. This may produce something that can be shared--Smith brings his own changed self back to Wootton and his family, and Tolkien has, of course, shared his own experience of faerie with his vast readership, but at the point of it being an experience for either Smith or Tolkien, it is experienced alone.

Without fully thinking it through, I'm not sure the star IS more than a symbol, but I think as a symbol, it is fairly clear what Tolkien is getting at: experiencing faerie is a gift, not something that people have by right or effort: either they have it or not and gratitude is the best attitude toward it.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Thank you both, Form and LMP, for your responses to my queries. (Also for some reason I had been thinking that the Smith was earlier than the 60s, but now that just further makes me think that there indeed may have been some either conscious or unconscious influence on Tolkien and this possible polemic.)

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

One of the things I have been contemplating as I reread this, is why Fairie has to be limited to just one human with access at a time.

Why does only Smith have access to Fairie and not anyone else? His family knows of it but never joins him. Despite his friendships with the C.B.S. and the Inklings, did he feel that he alone had access to Fairie, no one else?

This is one of the things I have been wondering about too, a lot. Leaving aside the question about Tolkien himself and focussing just on the "in-story" part, it is perhaps the one thing that I personally find somewhat jarring in Smith.

By that I mean that I am not entirely sure that I side with the "heroes" of this story, at least on the emotional level. On the general level, I of course despise the "materialistic" Noakes and I very much appreciate the message, the value of Faery, the beauty, all that. But the way it is presented, if you take it just as a story, it seems at least to me that both the Smith and Alf are terrible jerks. The Smith spends large part of his life leaving his family and work for travelling somewhere away from them. I mean, no problem with recreation - but I have always wondered, why wouldn't he take his wife or kids with him? Instead, he is all "look, kids! I have visited magical places, isn't it cool!" while the kids have to sit at home and probably live as boring life as the old cook. (And here comes the question - obviously the story makes it clear that the kids didn't have the star, but don't tell me that there wouldn't be a way for the Smith to figure something out during all these years. It would be a completely different thing if they weren't interested at all, but they do not seem to be entirely disinterested. Imagine being able to literally walk for example into Middle-Earth and then just always return home late evening to brag about it to your family.)

And as for Alf, he I find him to be quite a manipulative fellow who is terribly full of himself. He does not speak straight and he just installs himself into the village to manipulate human fates. Sure, that is what fairies in traditional mythology *do*. But the story does not show it as in any way problematic, it still presents as if Alf was 100% in the right, the Smith's response to him is very much "yes sir thank you sir I will do as you say sir". For instance Gandalf was similarly manipulative at times, but he had a clear good agenda and he tried to speak openly to the Bagginses once he knew something.

Did anyone else perceive these things as problematic or was it just me?

EDIT: This is not Werewolf, but I feel that it is notable - in terms of the expected level of activity on the 'Downs - that I have apparently just crossposted with two people!

[Guinevere]

Originally posted by Littlemanpoet
I have read an article somewhere (Mythlore magazine, or a book?) in which it was speculated that the Great Kitchen and its Master Cook stood in for the Church and its Priest. I don't think I agree, because many villages and towns in real life, like Wootton Major in this story, have some aspect that is expanded and elaborated.

As I have a copy of the extended edition of Smith of Wooton Major(edited by Verlyn Flieger) I can tell you that it was Tolkien himself who suggested this, in a note to Clyde Kilby, 1967. ("Genesis of the story")

...There is no allegory in the Faery, which is conceived as having a real extramental existence. (There is some trace of allegory in the Human part, which seems to me obvious though no reader or critic has yet adverted to it. As usual there is no "religion" in the story; but plainly enough the Master Cook and the Great Hall etc are a ( somewhat satirical) allegory of the village-church, and village parson: its functions steadily decaying and losing all touch with the "arts", into mere eating and drinking-the last6 traces of anything "other" being left to children)

In the extended edition, there is a lengthy essay with notes to the story, by Tolkien himself. I am going to read that again and see if I find something more noteworthy...

originally posted by Formendacil
it is fairly clear what Tolkien is getting at: experiencing faerie is a gift, not something that people have by right or effort: either they have it or not and gratitude is the best attitude toward it.

I agree very much!

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Guinevere

As I have a copy of the extended edition of Smith of Wooton Major(edited by Verlyn Flieger) I can tell you that it was Tolkien himself who suggested this, in a note to Clyde Kilby, 1967. ("Genesis of the story")

In the extended edition, there is a lengthy essay with notes to the story, by Tolkien himself. I am going to read that again and see if I find something more noteworthy...

It all comes back now. Thanks, Guinevere, for that.

Originally Posted by Legate

But my main beef is with the Smith himself and I would have expected Tolkien to show perhaps a little more, hmmm, empathy, in the sense that: it is awfully unempathetic of the Smith to just go adventuring and leave the family behind.

This story seems autobiographical even if Tolkien would gainsay it. Could it be that Tolkien was partially blind to the 'leaving behind' of his wife and his children? On the other hand, Christopher was deeply involved with Tolkien's creative process, so what of that? Did Ned inherit his father's business? It would be a surprise if he didn't. But that's different from being bequeathed the Star, as Formendacil points out.

But what you have been saying got me to thinking as I began to doze off last night, what if Smith's and Nokes' characters were switched out? What if it had been a Nokes who ate the Star in the cake, and kept the coin instead of giving it to Nell, and then got into all kinds of mischief in Faery? And what if Smith had been Master Cook instead? It would be a different story, and I wonder how much to Tolkien's point?

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I of course despise the "materialistic" Noakes ...
it seems at least to me that both the Smith and Alf are terrible jerks. The Smith spends large part of his life leaving his family and work for travelling somewhere away from them.

And as for Alf, he I find him to be quite a manipulative fellow who is terribly full of himself.

Did anyone else perceive these things as problematic or was it just me?

I wonder if you are objecting to patriarchal characters in a patriarchal society written by an author with an essentially patriarchal world view? I could imagine similar objections leveled against 'The Arabian Nights,' along the lines of 'how dare that king keep a harem, one wife ought to do for him.'

So Alf is indeed a king; kings tend to have cause to be as full of themselves as their social and political position allows, and then throw in Faerie on top of that.

As for Nokes, he is described as qualitatively different from the other villagers. They are guilty of overlooking Alf as the duly appointed next Master Cook. Nokes is guilty of something other: vanity. Thinking more of himself than is his due. And thinking less of Alf than is Alf's right. So I find it interesting Tolkien speaks of the villagers' wrongfulness matter of factly, in a sense of 'these kinds of things happen all the time and people are just like that.' Whereas with Nokes, Tolkien takes time to especially condemn the man's presumptuous vanity. What does Tolkien, I wonder, find particularly despicable about this kind of vanity as compared to the villagers' presumptuous inconsideration?

[Bêthberry]

Posting some general thoughts in reply to everyone posting on the issue of who can enter Fairie.

It is true that Tolkien's thoughts about what a proper fairy story is developed in response to his attempt to write an introduction to MacDonald's "The Golden Key", which Tolkien no longer found as satisfying as he once did. However, that does not mean that Tolkien's "Smith" imitates or follows MacDonald's story or as a story owes specific intertextual details.Other than the woods of course, but they are plentiful in fairy stories anyway.

MacDonald's Golden Key involves two protagonists, Tangle and Mossy. Both are "sent" into fairy. Several of MacDonald's other fairy stories also involve several protagonists, Princess Irene and Curdie.

And of course one of the original stories of Tolkien's Legendarium involves Beren and Luthien.

So there is quite a bit of evidence that fairie in other stories is not limited to a sole protagonist.

Sorry, RL calls me away, with just a stunted post. Au revoir.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

And of course one of the original stories of Tolkien's Legendarium involves Beren and Luthien.

So there is quite a bit of evidence that fairie in other stories is not limited to a sole protagonist.

I take your broader point about entry into faerie as not being a journey made alone in all cases (though I think that Tolkien's own journey is better characterised as alone than as with companions and that that is relevant here, given that Smith is somewhat autobiographical*) but now it is my turn to quibble, because I do not think Beren and Lúthien supports that point at all: Beren enters faerie alone and never does quite return to the realm of Men. Lúthien is, after all, of faerie herself.




*Actually, given the autobiographical elements of Smith is it perhaps a wistful comment on Tolkien's own children that none of them--including Christopher--have received the Star?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

I wonder if you are objecting to patriarchal characters in a patriarchal society written by an author with an essentially patriarchal world view? I could imagine similar objections leveled against 'The Arabian Nights,' along the lines of 'how dare that king keep a harem, one wife ought to do for him.'

Well, I guess you can put it that way, but I do not recall having problems like that with any other Tolkien's stories. That is why it struck me as particularly unusual with the Smith.

I also agree with what you said about Alf, indeed he's a king and an "alien" one at that; maybe that covers it (but for example the king in Farmer Giles is put under quite heavy and obvious scrutiny by the author; yet nothing like that happens to Alf. Is it that Tolkien did not consider it his place to argue against the King of Faery?).

But my main beef is with the Smith himself and I would have expected Tolkien to show perhaps a little more, hmmm, empathy, in the sense that: it is awfully unempathetic of the Smith to just go adventuring and leave the family behind.

Unless...

Originally Posted by Formendacil

*Actually, given the autobiographical elements of Smith is it perhaps a wistful comment on Tolkien's own children that none of them--including Christopher--have received the Star?

...unless this. I guess the only way out is if we say that the Smith is autobiographic through and through, and that the Smith goes alone simply because Tolkien did. (That however then DOES make the Smith a 100% allegory - say goodbye to your principles, Mr. Tolkien!) So the Smith's treks to Faery that he makes alone are the direct allegory of Tolkien's own treks to Middle-Earth that his wife did not take part in. (But how about the kids? Or is the final discussion of the Smith with his son a sort of explanation of that? The son however still seems to remain a bit "out"; he does not seem particularly knowledgeable of where exactly his father had been going or particularly enthusiastic.)

And anyway, this does not "exonerate" the Smith, it only makes Tolkien himself look worse, if we apply the Smith's tale and what I consider his shortcomings to Tolkien himself.

But yes. Perhaps it is, like you said, LMP, the sort of patriarchal head of the family who is the free man to go and enjoy his hobbies as long as his wife is waiting at home with the meal. I am only disappointed in that case because I sort of expected more.

This is actually related to another thing I would like to mention, but perhaps I'll do it a bit later since we seem to be having a good conversation going on here as it is...

Also looking forward to the continuation of Bethberry's post, because I very much like (and second) the questions and ideas posed there...

Oh, and I still wanted to comment on this:

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

As for Nokes, he is described as qualitatively different from the other villagers. They are guilty of overlooking Alf as the duly appointed next Master Cook. Nokes is guilty of something other: vanity. Thinking more of himself than is his due. And thinking less of Alf than is Alf's right. So I find it interesting Tolkien speaks of the villagers' wrongfulness matter of factly, in a sense of 'these kinds of things happen all the time and people are just like that.' Whereas with Nokes, Tolkien takes time to especially condemn the man's presumptuous vanity. What does Tolkien, I wonder, find particularly despicable about this kind of vanity as compared to the villagers' presumptuous inconsideration?

I did not mention it but I also very much empathise with the feeling you reflected in one of your earlier posts; that of it being "unfair" of Prentice being skipped over and disregarded by the village and all that. It is in fact so much obviously unfair to me that I considered it unnecessary to mention it. But I very much agree.

I personally always read it the way that the satisfaction eventually demonstrated on the character of Nokes is sort of substitutionary for the whole nameless mob of villagers who had been ignoring Alf. They were doing so possibly to a lesser degree than Nokes himself - I'd say rather passively by letting Nokes hog the spotlight than actively; although not that it is objectively any better, maybe even worse. Or who is worse, the actively bad people, or the people who see them and do nothing...

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

I take your broader point about entry into faerie as not being a journey made alone in all cases (though I think that Tolkien's own journey is better characterised as alone than as with companions and that that is relevant here, given that Smith is somewhat autobiographical*) but now it is my turn to quibble, because I do not think Beren and Lúthien supports that point at all: Beren enters faerie alone and never does quite return to the realm of Men. Lúthien is, after all, of faerie herself.


*Actually, given the autobiographical elements of Smith is it perhaps a wistful comment on Tolkien's own children that none of them--including Christopher--have received the Star?

Well, I am going to have to disagree with you about Beren and Luthien.

Largely because I was referring to the entire concept of Beren and Luthien, that started with "The Tale of Tinuviel" which we have in BOLT 2. The evolution of the narrative is fascinating. Beren is originally an elf--well, "gnome", or Nordor elf. In Christopher Tolkien's index, under Beren, there are five listings for Beren as man or elf.

In the index to John Garth's "Tolkien and the Great War", there are 10 listings for "Beren (Elf, lover of Tinuviel" and on for Beren as mortal, as befits his extensive analysis of Tolkien's early writing, pp. 261-265.

Ultimately of course Tolkien went for "mortal". But central to the narrative, throughout its evolution, is the essential aspect of the male being enchanted by the elf maid. This is a constant in fairy tales, starting with Thomas the Rymer, whose gift of prophecy is link to his talents as a poet. (This personage and the story belongs to legend, pseudo-history, and medieval verse romance.) Thomas is carried off by the Queen of Elfland but eventually returns to the mortal world with her gift. The story also borrows motifs from the fairy tale Rapunzel, as well as Greek mythology.

What specifically happens through the iterations of their story changes to suit Tolkien's narrative purpose, but the place of the lovers within traditions of fairie remains constant. SoWM seems to pick this up with Smith's dancing with the elf queen. What was one of the astounding developments in the evolution of the tale of Beren and Tinuviel was the increasing strength and power and agency of Luthien, from passive elf girl to woman who is not afraid to use her powers. But that Luthien seems to have disappeared from SoWM and we have Smith alone, who quite surprisingly is given the job of iron monger, as task not previously depicted in the Legendarium as an elvish skill.

But as to the question of autobiographical elements or allegory, it is worth while to recall what Tolkien wrote to Christopher after Edith's death, in Letter #340.

For if as seems probable I shall never write any ordered biography – it is against my nature, which expresses itself about things deepest felt in tales and myths

.

So perhaps in SoWM Tolkien was moving away from the very personal aspect of the Beren and Tinuviel narrative and more towards his influences in literary art. I note also that Niggle is a single male while Parish is seen as encumbered with a wife.

There is a new biography of Edith Bratt coming out I think in September from Walking Tree Publishers, "The Gallant Edith Bratt", which provides fascinating new evidence for the influence Edith had in Tolkien's early years of writing.