I often wonder if Tolkien was inspired by the likes of Jules Verne and Lewis Carol. What pioneers these greats were. I am certainly inspired.

Este es mi primer Tolkien. Nunca me había animado, siempre le tuve mucho respeto. Tampoco sumaba el hecho de que no soy muy fanática de la fantasía. Y para mal de males, me advirtieron que el autor no era ameno de leer, muchos renunciaron a sus lecturas de manera muy prematura, sin lograr que los atraiga. Sin embargo, esta es una de esas lecturas donde, si pudiera, le daría mil estrellitas más.

Leí esta historia completamente hechizada. Tan pronto empecé este libro me dieron ganas reales de llorar al pensar en lo absurda que fui al negarme tanto con este autor. La historia es tan hermosa, y la prosa de Tolkien es una cosa de locos. Pensamiento completamente ajeno a la historia: ojalá hubiera tenido una edición ilustrada para acompañar esta hermosa aventura. Ya voy a buscar alguna que esté preciosamente ilustrada y tendrá su relectura. Pero mientras tanto, no quisiera dejar de recomendarlo, ya que a diferencia de lo que yo había escuchado, el libro es completamente amigable y accesible, y los hobbits son sencillamente entrañables.

Les dejo la video reseña más completa que hice en mi canal: youtu.be/qKU5XjXpOT0

Gosh, that last chapter. Sigh.
And you can start celebrating the updates are over. Now let's start LotR :)

Buddy read with Jen the unexpected party
Get it? the unexpected party, as in chapter one's title. Oh I'm hilarious.


----------------------------------------------------
OK let’s do this.
But first let’s talk about something totally unrelated but totally is.

So I don’t know about you guys but when I watch a sporting event, no matter what it is, and I see these world class athletes doing their thing, all I think about is I couldn’t possibly do this. That’s why they are the ones doing it and I’m the one watching it, but once in a while comes these, well there’s only one word for it, Legends.

These legends when predictable, still unstoppable, they do the hardest things the easiest way, they don’t do things to show you they can, they do it so you know you can.
Mr. Tolkien is a legend, The Hobbit is a legend and Bilbo Baggins is a legend.

There’s so much I want to say but above and beyond all, If somehow you haven’t read this book and you stumbled upon this review please do yourself a favor and go read it instead of this, because it’ll be devastating to know that I cost you precious time you could and should spend reading The Hobbit.

It’s rare to read a fantasy novel and relate to its protagonist us much us I did.
Hero, or as I said legend are words associated in our minds with pictures of smart strong characters, with someone who spent a life in training or maybe a chosen one destined to change the world. Although technically Bilbo is chosen, the way the story address it and develops around it you don’t think of him as a hero, at least I didn’t, not more than I would think of myself if I were in his position, and here where the story gets me, because I do feel I’m in his position from the very beginning. I think Bilbo managed to be this unusual yet relatable hero, because of how human he was in this inhumanly world, how nice he was or at least tried to be to Gandalf and the Dwarves even when they made him uncomfortable and how he saved them even when they needed saving from themselves.

I can see myself reading this for my kids one day, and it won’t be boring, it’s still going to be an enjoyable and fun journey, because it’s gold and gold does not rust with time. This story is associated with only beautiful things in my mind, in fact the whole time writing this review I can’t help but think of sunny spring fields and cold breezes.

I loved the world in this book and I mean this book, because I haven’t read the other Middle Earth books but I still love it, it was so vast and beautiful, it wouldn’t be the same journey if it was set in a different world.

I feel I’m not doing the other characters justice because so far I only talked about Bilbo but the truth is I love them all. Gandalf is probably my favorite besides Bilbo but I also love Dwalin, Balin, Kili, Fili, Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, and Thorin. The other character I loved is Beorn, I don’t know why but I just did and the whole thing with him and Gandalf and how the Dwarves didn’t come all at once, I really loved that part.

I watched the movies and I enjoyed them but they didn’t reflect the joy I had reading this book. The movies were darker, they were more about war but the book was more about the journey. This is probably the only time a movie has been bigger than the book but to be fair the movies built the story to be a prequel to The Lord of the Rings and they had a lot more than what was in this book to build upon. The movies hold the main story of the book and I’ll be happy if every movie adaptation was like this, they all should. I have to say that the cinematography and all the landscapes were exceptional and it reflects the beautiful world in the book.

The other thing I loved about the movies is the soundtracks, I cannot express how much I loved that, it was one of the best things about the movies, because I loved the poems in the book and the movies didn’t disappoint on that account, the best one has got to be The Misty Mountains Cold, it was one of my favorite parts in the book, and the music in the movie made it perfect, I only wish they made a bit longer. Every time I hear it, I want to grow a beard and go on an adventure.

From a hole in the ground came one of my favorite characters of all time, the very reluctant and unassuming hero, Bilbo Baggins.

As a child, The Hobbit sparked my young imagination, causing wonderful daydreams and horrible nightmares. As a teen, the book made me want to become a writer of fantastical tales...or go shoeless, live in a hole and smoke a pipe. As an adult, Tolkien's novel maintains within me a link to my childhood, safekeeping cherished memories and evoking everlasting emotions.

The troubles with trolls, those slinking spiders, the finding of treasure, cave exploration, riddles in the dark...it all added up in me a love for adventure. I would make many an ornate wooden sword in my father's basement workshop, because of Sting. Funny I didn't take to wearing rings though...

Being pint-sized, Mr. Baggins makes the perfect magnetic character for a young person. He is about a child's size, yet he is mature. Similar, yet something to aspire to. His diminutive stature made his implausible escapes and victories that much more satisfying. Nothing bores me more than muscle-bound killing machines wielding swords the size of windmill blades.

I have read this fantastic tale a number of times, watched the 70s cartoon movie version countless times and was counting down the days with unabashed eagerness until Peter Jackson's new live action film came out. I will continue to read The Hobbit again and again, for the road goes ever, ever on...


Appendix-ish type reviews

The Hobbit, the 1977 animated film version by Rankin & Bass
This may be the movie I've watched the most in my life. This is the one I can quote from start to finish and annoy the fuck out of my friends. I try to refrain, but when John Huston bellows out, "I am Gandalf and Gandalf means ME!!!"...well, I just can't help myself. Crazy-off-his-rocker Brother Theodore as Gollum still astounds me with the sheer depth of his guttural growl. Sorry voice-straining Serkis, but this is the real Gollum, the creepy muthah that kept me up nights. Though Rankin & Bass's version skips over the whole Beorn scene entirely, coming in at 90 minutes, they actually managed to pack in quite a bit of story. Certainly it is truncated (to absurdity during The Battle of Five Armies), but at least it's not overblown, as appears to be happening with Peter Jackson's unnecessarily long trilogy of this single book.

The Hobbit, or There And Back Again (An illustrated book by Rankin & Bass)
Though it's a few pages shorter than the regular paperback version, this marvelous part-text, part-illustrated version seems to be unabridged. It includes screenshots taken directly from the 70s cartoon, plus where the movie skipped over parts of the book they've included extra illustrations, admittedly of mixed quality. It's a little strange to see the same characters rendered differently sitting side by side...

...but nonetheless, it's always fun to see how artists interpret the work, especially when it's a work dear to your heart.

The Hobbit, a film version by Peter Jackson
It's never fun to see an artist tear the heart out of a work. Peter Jackson was given too long a leash when New Line stretched this one book out to three separate movies. Instead of one movie packed with awesome, we get three that, so far (I've yet to see the third and I'm not eager to), have been watered down and dragged out. Extra scenes are added and add nothing: Really, a sleigh ride chase scene with an incredibly minor character? And honestly, can Richard Armitage (as Thorin Oakenshield) act with any other part of his body besides his eyebrows?

DNF at 200 pages.

This is definitely something I'm going to have to return to in the future, but there's a reason why I can't read it now. We're reading LOTR for my fantasy literature class and I had planned to read this before I began FOTR, but I completely forgot and therefore tried to cram it in before starting the book for class. I ended up trying to listen to this as an audiobook as well as read it, but i'm over halfway through the book and i'm now realizing I have no idea what i'm reading. I've been trying to consume this so quickly that I literally didn't even let the story soak in, and I feel like if i'm going to read this, I want to read this and enjoy it. THEREFORE, I will retry this one day when I don't have a million other reading assignments lol

(however i will say, i like lotr better than this so far. after bilbo left gollum, it got really really boring.)

This is the beginning, the genesis of what many consider the greatest fantasy story ever told. This story, the story of Bilbo, the story of the Ring, is so simple, so like a children’s fairytale that it’s difficult to imagine the magnitude and complexity of the story it spawned, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I read the Hobbit first and I fell in love with Bilbo, so much so that it took me awhile to warm up to Frodo. This is a reread for me and the story is just as appealing, just as lovable as the first time I read it. This is surely a story that will be read and loved for generations to come.

Reread January 2018

When you think of the possibility of creating an iconic character. . . one that could impact the current culture and then perhaps go on to create a legacy that could last for decades, maybe centuries, does it make you wither from the immensity of dreaming up such an accomplishment, or does such a thought make you shiver with excitement and set your gaze to such an horizon?

And, whether you'd wither or shiver. . . what would cause such feelings in you? Would it be your own ego that would dream up such fame and glory, or would you set out, altruistically, in the hopes of creating only good?

If I were to task you to think for a moment about the impact of creating a Count of Monte Cristo, an Anne of Green Gables, a Mowgli, a Don Quixote, a Holden Caulfield, a Pippi Longstocking or a Bilbo Baggins. . . may I ask you HOW do you think you'd feel to have accomplished such a rare and momentous thing?

Also: how often is the birth of an iconic character a random event that no one could have dreamed up or predicted?

When it comes to Mr. Bilbo Baggins, or the hobbit, if you will, I'm going to declare that his fame was entirely random.

I think that J.R.R. Tolkien was a naturalist and a natural storyteller, a man who dreamed up stories for his own children and then saw how they landed with his audience, and proceeded on, if he met with success.

I suspect that stories emerged from him, quite organically, and that he chose to tell a story of a very wee creature, a hobbit, because his own little ones were also wee and he watched them struggle, as we all do, with feelings of inadequacy and insignificance. (Notice. . . everyone, save two characters in this story, are creatures the size of children).

Having spent the past two months reading this to my 13-year-old daughter, who is, well, quite short in stature (and will most likely remain, as an adult, at this current height), I could see the impact that Bilbo's long walk had, one hundred years later, on her very own modern journey.

There is more in you of good than you know. . . 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.

As far as I'm concerned, Bilbo Baggins became iconic for all of the right reasons, and his lasting fame has nothing to do with a “second breakfast” or hairy feet.

He has courage in a wild, dark, twisty world. . . and, just as important, he has compassion. And, let me tell you, my friends, courage and compassion are never going to become obsolete. We will need them, always, in this world. We need them now more than ever.

My daughter isn't quite old enough yet to understand why her also-short-in-stature mother cried when she read aloud one of the final scenes between the hobbit and the hideous creature, Gollum. No spoiler alerts here, but I want to set the stage for this scene. The hobbit is in a terrifying position, being hunted in the dark by a strange creature named Gollum, one who not only wants something that Bilbo has in his possession, but possibly wants to kill him, too:

Bilbo almost stopped breathing, and went stiff himself. He was desperate. He must get away, out of this horrible darkness, while he had any strength left. He must fight. He must stab the foul thing, put its eyes out, kill it. It meant to kill him. No, not a fair fight. He was invisible now. Gollum had no sword. Gollum had not actually threatened to kill him, or tried to yet. And he was miserable, alone, lost. A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo's heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope or betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering. All these thoughts passed in a flash of a second. He trembled. And then quite suddenly in another flash, as if lifted by a new strength and resolve, he leaped.

What a tremendous passage, one that inspired me to say to my youngest child, to explain my tears, “This life requires great courage, at any size, at any age. We must protect ourselves, always from our enemies. Protect yourself, always. . . but did you see what Bilbo did? See how he had great courage and saved himself. . . but also had the compassion to see the suffering in his enemy?”

What an iconic character! I am just straight-up flummoxed; I feel wildly honored to have the opportunity to write this reading response.

No ego here in the writing of this classic. . . just grace, and class, and natural storytelling. I finished it with goosebumps up and down my arms.

The Hobbit and LOTR are so epic that even now when I go on a hike, I always pretend that my chocolate chip cookies to go are actually Lembas.

2021 update re podcast - see section below image of two rings.

This is a book I cast aside, unfinished, as a child, and learned to love through the enraptured passion of my own child, nestled in my lap. It’s a much cosier introduction to Middle Earth than the Lord of the Rings.

n
“Good Morning!" said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.
"What do you mean?" he said. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"
"All of them at once," said Bilbo.
n

In some ways it's a simple quest for treasure, with hobbits, dwarves, elves, and a wizard as heroes. You get a taste of the full breadth and darker depth of Tolkien's Middle Earth, but the dragon, Smaug, is not especially fearsome - certainly less so than Gollum, goblins, and wargs - and anyway, fear is counterbalanced by a scattering of rhymes and riddles.


Image: Original illustration of Smaug, Tolkien Estate© (Source.)

Finding (the) Love

“Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.”

I was fortunate to have parents who were readers - to themselves, and aloud to their children. However, neither were Tolkien fans, and I picked this up around age 9, at the urging of an uncle. I forget why I disliked it: perhaps I’ve erased the details because I was ashamed of abandoning it part way through.

My child is also fortunate to have parents who are readers. Aged 6, after Letters from Father Christmas (see my review HERE), and perhaps aware of the building hype for Peter Jackson’s first LotR film, my child requested The Hobbit as a bedtime story. I agreed with eagerness that veiled my heavy heart.

But what joy! My child’s passionate wonder started from the first few pages and was infectious. It became a deep bond, and it was one of the first "proper" books my child pushed themself to read alone - waking up early to go beyond where I'd finished the night before.

Soon after, we cemented our new love with The Lord of the Rings, eventually followed by The Silmarillion (see my review HERE), which was much harder to read aloud!

At 25, my child has read various Middle Earth books many times, and next year, will marry a fellow member of the uni Tolkien society. EDIT: Postponed for a year because of Covid pandemic. Fingers crossed!


Image: Two rings, in the light will bind them. (Source.)


Excellent podcast discussion

The Teaching My Cat to Read podcast team have just done a really good episode on The Hobbit, and I commend it to you, and indeed their others. Links are in their GR review of the book, HERE.

Quotes

•t“Trolls simply detest the sight of dwarves (uncooked).”

•t“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him. Dragons may not have much real use for all their wealth, but they know it to an ounce as a rule, especially after long possession; and Smaug was no exception.”

•t“No dragon can resist the fascination of riddling talk and of wasting time trying to understand it.”

•t“When the heart of a dwarf, even the most respectable, is wakened by gold and by jewels, he grows suddenly bold, and he may become fierce.”

•t“This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down.” (A Whovian riddle from Gollum)

•t“Your lullaby would waken a drunken goblin!”

•t“May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks.”

Reading Order

Although Lord of the Rings stands on its own, it makes far more sense to read The Hobbit first. However, a child who enjoys The Hobbit is not necessarily ready to tackle LotR on their own - not just because this is shorter and simpler, but also because it is describing a gentler world. Side-stories, and the mythology of Middle Earth are best read after first reading The Hobbit and LotR, but before rereading them.

Thanks

It was chatting in comments on Alfred’s delightful review (HERE) that made me resolve to write a proper review of this at long last, as well as of The Silmarillion. Hence, this review, and my Silmarillion one, are totally new, August 2019.

In certain crowds, my rating and the words I'm about to write (well, type) would probably get me shot. But The Hobbit is still one of the most boring books I have ever read. Tolkien's writing seems so dry and impersonal, though I can't deny he had a lot of fascinating ideas.

OMG! I die a little inside every time Smug,Thorin, Killi and Fili die :(
This book and movies are art.

I'm not going to say much about this book because i'm sure plenty of people are familiar with it.

I can't help it I'm listening to it again. I bought it this time a different version from the last. I'm going to listen to all 4.

11/20/17 holiday rereading try to do this yearly
11/26/18 audiobook #216
Annual holiday reread

I've read this more times than Fellowship. I never get tired of reading about the great journey.