Visit The *EVEN NEWER* Barrow-Downs Photo Page |
|
07-25-2021, 11:23 AM | #1 | |
Itinerant Songster
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: The Edge of Faerie
Posts: 7,066
|
Quote:
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? |
|
07-25-2021, 11:57 AM | #2 |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 5,979
|
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.
__________________
I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
07-25-2021, 12:21 PM | #3 | |
Dead Serious
|
Quote:
*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?
__________________
I prefer history, true or feigned.
|
|
07-25-2021, 01:49 PM | #4 | |||
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
Posts: 7,431
|
Quote:
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... Quote:
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: Quote:
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...
__________________
"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
|||
08-29-2021, 03:52 AM | #5 | ||
Banshee of Camelot
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Switzerland
Posts: 5,830
|
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
Yes! "wish-fulfilment dreams" we spin to cheat our timid hearts, and ugly Fact defeat! |
||
08-29-2021, 08:03 AM | #6 | ||
Gruesome Spectre
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Heaven's doorstep
Posts: 8,035
|
Quote:
Mortals entering the realms of the immortal briefly partake of the difference the effect of time has upon those who aren't subject to the passing of years.
__________________
Music alone proves the existence of God. |
||
08-29-2021, 07:21 PM | #7 |
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,300
|
Closer than some might think, because when Tolkien wrote the Lorien chapters, no time passed in the outside world while the Company was in the Naith. When Sam was puzzled by the new moon a week after leaving, and surmised (still in FR) that "it's almost as if we didn't spend no time in there at all," it was literally true: the Fellowship crossed Silverlode on January 14 and left on - January 15.
He changed his mind about this, but not until five years later. Why he did is a mystery; I haven't found any note, scrap or jotting which gives a clue as to his reasons. It's interesting though that Tolkien seems to have inverted the traditional "time is different in Faerie" trope. Much more usual is that found in everything from Thomas the Rhymer to The King of Elfland's Daughter to Tolkien's own The Sea-Bell: a few days inside equals decades outside, and the poor wanderer emerges to find all his loved ones long in their graves. Even Washington Irving tapped into this- although he has Rip van Winkle sleeping for 20 years rather than feasting in Elfland, it happened because Rip had partied with fay-creatures and passed out for 20 years as a result of drinking their booze.
__________________
The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
07-25-2021, 09:43 PM | #8 | ||
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 5,979
|
Quote:
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. Quote:
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.
__________________
I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
||
07-26-2021, 08:59 AM | #9 | |
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Ensconced in curmudgeonly pursuits
Posts: 2,500
|
Quote:
There are also numerous citations for Breaking Faery Taboo, or mortal incursions on the Faery realm which are punished, like entering a fairy ring or stumbling onto a faery rade or in the case of Rip Van Winkle and the Irish tale of Oisín, where they return to the mortal world aged beyond recall. Nowhere that I can recall in folklore are mortals gifted an entrance to Faery. That seems more Tolkienesque than true to folklorish motifs.
__________________
And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision. |
|
07-26-2021, 05:28 PM | #10 | |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 5,979
|
Quote:
What Tolkien does is transform motifs in fairy tales (and elsewhere). In so doing, he does not dismiss fairie but instead expands it. SoWM is all the more intriguing when readers can see how he transforms (and I use that word in a Genette manner) the received tradition. btw, the gift to mortals from fairies is likely a technical issue. It's not like Tolkien could just have Smith run off and become enchanted with the Fairy Queen and then just saunter home to wife, not after the romance and love of Beren and Tinuviel. The dancing has to be elevated by the Fairy Queen having a Fairy King, a couple who work together to educate the mortal. It also reverses the gift from Thomas the Rhymer, which was given when he departed Fairy.
__________________
I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
|
07-27-2021, 04:23 AM | #11 |
Itinerant Songster
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: The Edge of Faerie
Posts: 7,066
|
I can't find the quote from one of you, who mentioned Smith's occupation as mere ironmonger. Did Tolkien perhaps choose his occupation because of the possible pun of himself being a 'word-smith?' Reading the descriptions of Smith's faerie-blessed works in that light, it seems that Tolkien may be saying that his own craft of word-smithy was enriched by Faerie. And this could be taken in the sense of his philology as well as being a writer of stories.
To expand upon Guinevere's evidence that the Village Hall and Kitchen and Master Cook are a play on the village church and parson, the reversal of gift draws attention to itself. Gift given without merit, as described in SoWM, is known as grace. It seems to me that Tolkien's description of the King and Queen of Faerie as essentially benevolent cuts across the grain of the tradition of Faerie as well, and in this he seems to follow George MacDonald instead of the larger tradition. Faerie seems to partake of spirituality in some sense. And thus SoWM has in some ways the feel of a parable, not unlike George MacDonald's work. |
|
|