(Cross posted from the MEFA site and written while waiting for the avian sacrifice to roast - pandemonium_213, 11/22/07)

Dawn’s magnum opus, Another Man’s Cage, was my introduction to Tolkien fan fiction.  I spent a good chunk of my New Year’s vacation of 2007 immersed in it.  Yet again, Dawn draws me into her secondary world of the Fëanorians with Salt, a story that so lovingly, tragically, and convincingly paints a vivid portrait of Carnister.

Carnister’s narrative begins in Aman.   The mother-son relationship is beautifully drawn here, and Dawn illustrates Nerdanel’s love for each of her sons with the detailing of the phials.   These are consistent with Dawn’s overarching fictional take on Tolkien’s Firstborn.  She portrays the Elves as fully human (as explicitly noted by Tolkien himself), but still possessing the sense of the Other that sets them apart from mortals.  The eldritch touch of the phials conveys the strangeness here.

Tolkien’s legendarium, The Silmarillion in particular, lends itself to the interpretative fan fic writer, and Dawn, as characteristic of her work, takes this and runs with it.   In Salt, Fëanor is a Noldorin Cassandra; few listen to his misgivings.  Dawn also fills the white spaces between the lines with her description of the harsh realism likely to underlie the more general descriptions written by Tolkien.  This is starkly illustrated by Dawn’s description of the commandeered ships foundering and drowning of the Noldor, and furthermore, the terror experienced by Fëanor and his sons at the mercy of the fierce ocean, and most intensely by Carnister as he takes another’s life.

The symbolism of the ocean and its intimate connection to Carnister are interwoven skillfully throughout the narrative. The sea offers peace to Carnister yet displays its lethal force to him.   Salt is given to the ocean by the tears of a god, and yet is benign and trivial as flavoring on popcorn.  Through this theme and the interlaced connections between the force of nature and the protagonist, Dawn effectively conveys Carnister’s inner anguish and depth of feeling that lie beneath his carapace of the weird.   Throughout the story, the sea lies in wait for Carnister, ready to take his tears.

Salt is a haunting story and for this reader, evokes a dream-like quality.   It is an excellent addition to Dawn’s expansive compendium of First Age tales.

I find this an interesting take on Caranthir (why he was called 'Dark' is cerainly a mystery) and a fascinating use of the Sea, but I do find the idea of Caranthir having insight into minds rather hard to reconcile with his evident mistake of trusting Uldor  Do you have any ideas about that part of Caranthir's story in mind?

This was probably the story that really got me hooked on Caranthir.  I first read it sometime ago, and it has never left me.  It moved me to tears and I could not bear the beauty of it.  So, thank-you for writing this, it was exquisiite.

I know this is an old story, for you, but I wanted to say that it is wonderful.  I am reading these after finding "Another Man's Cage," and so there are all these haunting connections among the disturbed, eerie, almost repellant child of that story, and the visionary, solitary adult Carnistir.