For the very first time...

I finished reading The Hobbit a few weeks ago, but I've been so busy (though as Kelly would say, "I signed up for it.") that I haven't had much time to read the blogs and post here. Now I'm making time. :)

This was my first time reading The Hobbit, and I didn't have very high hopes for it. When I was little, I saw about 5 minutes of the terrible animated movie of The Hobbit, and it was way too weird for me. I didn't even know what it was at the time, but when I saw the LOTR movies, it became clear that Gollum was the "scary frog" that I'd seen for a few minutes on TV once, and I realized that this was The Hobbit.

Despite my low expectations going in, this book charmed me at once. By page 20, I was telling my coworker Jan that she needed to read it immediately. She objected that she'd tried to read the first LOTR book before and couldn't get into it, but I assured her that she'd love The Hobbit anyway... and I had only just begun. I love the whole complex, wonderful world of this story, and I fully enjoyed the riddle scene with Gollum. :)

I couldn't stop reading this book. I look forward to reading it to my kids someday when I have them. :) Thank you, whoever voted for it. I voted for Treasure Island...

Katie

P.S. I plan to read the whole LOTR series this summer. :)

An Elf Question

I found it interesting that the dwarves in this book were miners, just as they are in Snow White. So, therefore, my popular culture image was consistent.

I tend to think of elves, well, as in Elf. They have three life/work opportunities: shoemakers, bakers in trees, and the show (or the big dance) working for Santa. So I was surprised, pleasantly mind you, when I saw the LOTR movies and found that elves were, in fact, Orlando Bloom. So what gives? Is there a standard for the commonly known fantasy creatures? Is there flexibility? Or are the elves just a very diverse population?

Closure

Random thoughts.

I was surprised the dwarves had nothing to do with the actual demise of Samaug and it took relatively few pages as opposed to what happened after. But then, not much thought may go into the repercussions of reaching a goal, let alone with what to do after. How will we remove the treasure let alone, get it home?

Nothing unites enemies like a common enemy.

Peace has a cost.

I have little danger of catching "dragon-sickness." Not enough gold. Will concentrate on avoiding bird flu.

Who, or what is Gandalf. He seems to show up at the opportune moments, but is never really the one who saves the day. He seems to have knowledge of the future and lets it play out.

Still liking the language.

Totally enjoyed Bilbo coming home to see his belongings being auctioned off. Oh those Sackville-Bagginses. "The legal bother, indeed, lasted for years."

Finally a Finale

I finished weeks ago, I just haven't gotten around to writing thoughts about the pages I marked in the last few chapters. Here they are:

Their captain was Bard, grim-voiced and grim-faced, whose friends had accused him of prophesying floods and poisoned fish . . .

It seems an odd juxtaposition to me to have someone named Bard be grim. I know not all bards are merry pranksters Degolar-style, but I don't even think of the most serious-minded ones as grim.

"Girion was lord of Dale, not king of Esgaroth," he said. "In the lake-town we have always elected masters from among the old and wise, and have not endured the rule of mere fighting men."

For some reason I thought of Monty Python and the Holy Grail when I read this quote this time, the skit where the peasant is upbraiding King Arthur for declaring himself king because "some watery tart [threw] a sword at [him]" instead of having a democratically elected government as in their district. Hehe.

Ever since the fall of the Great Goblin of the Misty Mountains the hatred of their race for the dwarves had been rekindled to fury.

Uh, OK? So how were the dwarves to blame for the death of the Great Goblin? The dwarves had been innocent travelers whom they waylaid. If anything bad happened to goblins as a result, it was purely self-defense on the part of the dwarves. And they weren’t even the ones who harmed him—it was Gandalf. I get really annoyed with people who mislay blame this way.

It was a terrible battle. The most dreadful of all Bilbo’s experiences, and the one which at the time he most hated—which is to say it was the one he was most proud of, and most fond of recalling long afterwards.

That’s the way it usually works, isn’t it?

There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

That is truth and wisdom.

Gandalf and Bilbo . . . intended to go along the edge of the forest, and round its northern end in the waste that lay between it and the beginning of the Grey Mountains. It was a long and cheerless road, but now that the goblins were crushed, it seemed safer to them than the dreadful pathways under the trees. Moreover Beorn was going that way too.

Even Gandalf and Beorn are scared to travel through Mirkwood? I just don’t get it.

THE END

Hobbitish

I didn't actually see him during the event, but apparently I recently ran with a Hobbit Wannabe.

I Shall Now Be Known As

Honeysuckle Bunce of Brockenborings

courtesy of Hobbit Name Generator

Unless I'm feeling elvish - Natulcien Felagund

Deconstructing the Lonely Mountain

"I am far too fat for such fly-walks," he said. "I should turn dizzy and tread on my beard, and then you would be thirteen again."

I thought they had to cut their beards off because of the sticky spider-webs?

All day Bilbo sat gloomily in the grassy bay gazing at the stone, or out west through the narrow opening. He had a queer feeling that he was waiting for something.

I'm technically a bit old for this, but I guess I'm from the MTV-ADHD generation. I can't just sit and think for very long. Walk, run, bike, or swim and think for hours, but not just sit. I take a book with me everywhere so I have something to do if I get stuck waiting. I usually have the TV or talk radio on for company and background noise. I've hiked and camped and worked at technology-less camps, so I have a general idea of what that kind of quiet, slow life can be, but it's not my general mode of existence.

The most that can be said for the dwarves is this: they intended to pay Bilbo really handsomely for his services; they had brought him to do a nasty job for them, and they did not mind the poor little fellow doing it if he would; but they would all have done their best to get him out of trouble, if he got into it, as they did in the case of the trolls at the beginning of their adventures before they had any particular reasons for being grateful to him. There it is: dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and teacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don't expect too much.

I'm with Gobula. For some reason this reading has me really losing any respect I might have had for the dwarves. They just don't seem all that capable or decent.

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.

Duh!

His rage passes description--the sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but have never before used or wanted.

A bit of social commentary snuck into the mix.

They debated long on what was to be done, but they could think of no way of getting rid of Smaug--which had always been a weak point in their plans.

Duh! They really didn't seem to have any plan at all except to walk toward the mountain and hope something lucky happened. It was Gandalf who guided them across the mountains and Beorn who set their path through the forest, and they barely survived those travels. Haven't these dwarves been wandering the world for over a hundred years or something? How did they ever manage to get from one place to another and even survive long enough to get there? And then to think they will somehow magically banish the dragon with absolutely no inkling how? Stupid.

The steps were not made, all the same, for hobbit-legs.

In most of the depictions of dwarves and hobbits I've seen, they aren't that significantly different in size. Sure, hobbits are smaller, but dwarves are supposed to be shorter and stockier than humans too. I've been surprised at how many references Tolkien makes to Bilbo not being able to keep up with the dwarves and may need to rethink the size differential I have pictured in my mind.

Resting and Recovering in Lake-Town

Quite apart from the stones no spider has ever liked being called Attercop, and Tomnoddy of course is insulting to anybody.

Attercop - either a spider or a "peevish, ill-natured person."
Tomnoddy - either a puffin or a fool or dunce.
I'm guessing it's the second meaning of each that was intended and taken.

[Bilbo's] little sword was something new in the way of stings for them. How it darted to and fro! It shone with delight as he stabbed at them. Half a dozen were killed before the rest drew off and left Bombur to Bilbo.

I have a little trouble believing the cultivated adventure-hater from the start of the book transforms into such a fierce warrior so instantly. Tolkien gave him a background for being good as a burglar and with a thrown stone, but it seems unlikely to me he's ever had any training with a sword or ever had to do any first-hand killing (even of animals like spiders). It's the first time he's actually fought this entire story. So I could see him flailing about with the sword in desperation, but his efficiency seems a bit much.

The feasting people were Wood-elves, of course. These are not wicked folk. If they have a fault it is distrust of strangers. . . . Still elves they were and remain, and that is Good People.

Even though Tolkien tries to assure us the wood-elves are "good people," their actions have never left that impression on me and I've never really bought it. Maybe they are basically decent, but not in this situation and that's not the feeling I have about them after the story.

"But what brought you into the forest at all?" asked the king angrily.

At that Thorin shut his mouth and would not say another word.

Why is Thorin so difficult here? Why wouldn't he simply tell the elf king what he told the great goblin, that We were on a journey to visit our relatives? It's a believable enough explanation, isn't it? This strikes me as a plot device to give Bilbo another chance to be the hero.

He was in the dark tunnel floating in icy water, all alone--for you cannot count friends that are all packed up in barrels.

The Hobbit Experience

A while back when I was comfortably entrenched on my sofa with my afghan, reading and probably giggling a little, my son had some friends over. One of them came over to my corner wondering what I was reading because it looked like I was having fun. When I said "The Hobbit' his immediate response was "I read that when I was 12." (Twelve seems to be the magic number.) He went on to tell me that his father had, almost with ceremony, given him the book, telling him he had read it when he was 12 and was passing it down. His fiancee came over and I read some of the amusing parts to them. They decided they were going to dig up the book and read it to each other. And they are. (By the way, his copy is some 1975 special edition.)

I was going to save this and ask this question later, but belongfellow's post made me want to do it now. What is it about this book? Why is it read over and over by some? What was it when you were 12 and what is it now? Tell me now or, tell me later, but I'd really like to know.

This is what I remember. I read it when I was 12. I remember I liked the book and went on to read LOTR and didn't like that as much. No specifics other than thinking the hobbit world was cool.

I can honestly say I am probably enjoying it much more now. I like the way he creates his setting, or world, and characters in the context of the story. I have trouble with some fantasy when the explanation and description of the world and it's inhabitants takes over the book and the story gets lost. Tolkien uses enough of the familiar so I can easily incorporate anything new without distracting me from the story.

And that being said, it's all about the language and the style. I am enjoying this in the same way I enjoyed Lemony Snicket. I love the way he speaks to the reader. His phrases and descriptions are unique, amusing and very visual. I can't help but smile when I read it.

The Bathroom

I'd forgotten how much I loved The Hobbit. Last weekend I had the house to myself and I was walking around reading. It didn't take more than a minute to sink into the story. I sunk in so much, in fact, that a few minutes later when I heard voices outside and steps on the stairs, I had a brief moment of disorientation and I didn't know where I was. I felt like I had gotten caught doing something, but I soon realized I was just at my own house, holed up in the bathroom, and not really in Middle Earth traipsing mountains with Bilbo & Co. I wish more books made me feel this way, and I can't believe I've never labeled The Hobbit my favorite.