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