Minor Works -- 3 - Smith of Wootton Major

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

"You look like a giant, Dad," said his son, who had not spoken before.

The concluding phrase in this sentence seems strange. It sticks out to me. We know that the son had not spoken in this particular conversation before, we can tell ourselves because it's the first time he's given words, obviously. Which leaves me to wonder, is this the first time that this lad has spoken at all? Is this what Tolkien means? If not, fine, but show me how this is not so. If so, why add it to the story? Is the boy's tongue loosened by Faery?

Rather interesting take. I personally never saw anything strange to it. Exactly quite the opposite: the son's tongue had been "taken away" by Faery in that particular conversation, he was so stupefied by Dad's sudden "glowy" appearance that he could not speak. Only after a long while, he managed to stutter out, or put into words the feeling he had.

That always seemed rather straightforward to me, although one can read it in different ways, just like anything.

Speaking of that particular experience - maybe this is the moment to mention my last strange impression from the whole story, vaguely related to my misgivings about the Smith leaving his family behind while he runs away to have fun in Faerie.

I remember that when I read it the first time, I was somewhat disturbed by the scene where the Smith dances with the Queen. She gives him the flower, then he comes back home and everyone, including his wife, is slightly puzzled. Back then, I wondered whether it was some very suspicious cipher for marital infidelity. The Smith keeps going somewhere away, and when he comes back, his wife asks: "Where have you been? And where did you get this flower?" Which was given to him by another woman. I remember being especially upset on his family's behalf because they clearly had no clue where he had been going and he never told them.

The impression was in my mind combined also with the fact that the Queen flirts (as I had read it) with the traveller, but the King is nowhere to be seen. I think I even interpreted Alf's initially somewhat reserved attitude towards the Smith later on as a way of saying "I know you have been visiting my wife, but I am not saying anything".

To be fair, now that I was rereading it, I did not see it there so much - but it is hard for me to judge it objectively, because the knowledge that I had read it as such still somehow influences my perception of it. I'd be interested if anyone else got a similar vibe. It is quite obvious (especially from the son's discussion as discussed above) that the intent was different, but I wonder whether anyone else got the impression that there is a bit of that in there.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I wondered whether it was some very suspicious cipher for marital infidelity.

This never occurred to me before your unpacking of it. After all, Smith, being autobiographical, is a metaphor for 'going somewhere' while not actually going there.

What did it mean for Tolkien to 'go to Faerie?' What does it mean for any of us to do so?

It is not to literally leave our family and go to a far country where we will dally with the folk of that land. Instead, it is to go where our imaginations take us, whether through a book, a painting, some other work of art, some new form of tech, or through our own fantasizing, or writing our own work of fantasy or at least story.

But how is this 'leaving one's family?' As Formendacil said, 'we go there alone.' We can't take others with us into our own heads, into our own imaginations.

And yet, when we 'come back' from wherever we have been, our close family may ask us, 'where have you been to?' - and it is a legitimate question: where have we been in our imagination? Is it a 'place' that can be described? a state of mind that can be related?

[littlemanpoet]

"He's gone at last! And I'm glad for one I never liked him. He was artful. Too nimble, you might say."

So Nokes gets the last word.

I had thought that it was also that way in 'Leaf By Niggle,' but no, there is a later section after Tompkins, Perkins, and Atkins have their say: the Two Voices have the last word.

So why do you suppose Tolkien gives the last word to Nokes?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

So why do you suppose Tolkien gives the last word to Nokes?

Perhaps to show that Nokes was so far gone in his own cocksureness and love of comfort that he was simply beyond learning anything from his experience with Smith, who in reality was indeed both his "elder and better".

There are some people who get to briefly touch the extraordinary in life, but, alas!, they are too busy with the mundane to notice.