Greeting friends, I signed up to do today’s Second Look on J.R.R  Tolkien’s classic The Hobbit. But in a shocking turn of events, I didn’t get enough of a head-start on my re-read to finish the book before this write-up. It’s not like it’s a terribly long book, but I only caught momentum re-reading it this weekend, reaching the half-way point where the party enters the Mirkwood forest. I still wanted to focus on it rather than change subjects though, cause there’s plenty to observe just from the first half. And yes, Peter Jackson would approve of my splitting it up, haha.

Background 

I read The Hobbit once before, as a kid — not sure of the exact age, but perhaps it was late Elementary or early Middle School? I want to say I picked it off a list optional summer reading books. I do remember I attempted in Elementary School to read The Lord of the Rings and made it through Fellowship, but staggered on completing the trilogy  — holding me back from being a true Tolkien-head. Of course The Hobbit was the Middle-Earth book actually geared towards younger readers, and I had much easier time enjoying it. It wouldn’t have been that long after I read the book that Peter Jackson adapted it into his stretched-out prequel trilogy. I saw all three movies in theaters, but haven’t gone back to them either besides clips. Really, I’ve gone back and forth on my opinions of JRR Tolkien, sometimes thinking Middle-Earth is pretty cool and something writing it off as too old fashion. But my perceptions is mostly from the films and the books’ reputation. I supposed part of the point of this “second look” at The Hobbit is to try to properly judge and appreciate Tolkien’s work from the easiest starting point. 

An Unexpected Journey

We get off to a cozy, familiar start as Gandalf shows up at Bilbo’s front door offering adventure. You know, the movies have some cool tricks to sell the scale of the Hobbits, but maybe their weakness (that no live-action adaption could overcome) is that you can see the Hobbits are just normal humans at a smaller scale. Which is sort of what they are, but the way Tolkien introduces them, they feel more properly like their own odd-race of creatures —  fantastical, despite being down to Earth in nature. And yes, it’s a funny start meeting Bilbo Baggins and immediately seeing him in the ridiculous scenario of having to be polite to 14 unexpected guests. I guess a lot of Bilbo’s appeal as a hero is just the humor of following this very reluctant adventurer. Most heroes get over their reluctance pretty quickly, Bilbo is a bit unique for taking longer to get acclimated. But Tolkien convinces, like Gandalf tries to convince the Dwarves, that there’s more to this repressed fellow at heart. 

Tolkien as a Writer 

As I read, I appreciated the Tolkien is writing in the same voice I imagined he would have used when telling stories to his children. I know that the Middle-Earth is supposed to be the same world as ours, but it surprised me how often he does put it in that context. (Though the tangent about golf being invented when a Took knocked a Goblin’s head into a hole rang a bell.) I suppose when you’re telling stories to kids about fantastical things like dwarves and elves, it’s natural to place it in the context of “This is a real thing that happened in our world!” I also kind of like when he says stuff like “Bilbo would never forget about this moment,” bringing it into context as Bilbo reflecting on this great adventure later in life. 

His love of nature frequently comes through as well in his very detailed descriptions of the areas our party is traveling through. At one point I had a probably ignorant thought, that as much as Tolkien seems to love Mountains, I don’t associate Great Britain with mountains much. I guess they must have high places everywhere. He’s also pretty into talking about the moonlight, and I accept that people in England can see the moon too. 

I did notice Tolkien says a lot of stuff like “yeah this character fit through the door – but he was just barely the right size to fit!” or “He made it out in time – but would have died if he gotten there a second later!” Like, it’s normal to have heroes just barely make it for drama, but the way Tolkien does it’s like a last second note he’s making in case whatever just happened didn’t seem suspenseful enough to you. 

Gandalf the Grey 

Gandalf is an interesting fellow, really setting a classic archetype of the wise figure who chooses to behave in a frustratingly quirky manner (Frustrating for the other heroes I mean.) I’m sure there’s precedent for this type of character in older stories, but the specific humor of it feels modern. And he’s delightful, but it’s a bit problematic looking at his role in the story and realizing how often he disappears just to justify the party getting into trouble, and then shows up just in time to save them. He’s in a sense too OP to always keep around (hence why he leaves the group shortly before the section I stopped reading at). 

Just from reading The Hobbit though I think you wouldn’t assume Gandalf is that powerful, not putting on that many fantastic displays. But maybe you’re meant to intuit that he’s more powerful than he shows, and appreciate that relies on cleverness more than raw magic power. In the episode with the trolls, I would have guessed from memory it was Bilbo who tricked them by imitating their voices, because that seems like something within the wit and power of a little Hobbit to do. In a sense it was disappointing that it turned out to be Gandalf who saves the day with that trick — but I supposed Bilbo gets his moments later, and it establishes Gandalf’s value first.

Other Characters and Creatures

I can’t say any of the Dwarves stand out much as characters or that I can remember more than a handful of their names. Of course I do remember Thorin, but that’s mostly thanks to the Richard Armitage in the movies. And I remember Fíli and Kíli, mostly because of their eventual fate. I suppose they’re really more a unit then intended to feel like 13 distinct characters. But it be nice there was a smaller group you felt more attached to. I’ll probably have a stronger idea of what to say about the Dwarves after I’ve reread the back half. We also don’t get to spend much time with Elves in the first half, but I’ll say it stuck out to me how childish and carefree the Elves we do meet our, because we mostly see the Elves in LOTR media being dour and arrogant and worried about the fading of their species and all that.

The Eagles are a somewhat interesting to bring up as well, not because of any question of how far they should have carried everyone (their explanation of not wanting to get shot down by humans made sense). The surprising thing was… they talk? Like I was confused at first when Bilbo actually understood what the Eagles just said in front of him. It’s not just surprising because they don’t talk in the movies. It’s cause other animals “talk” in a way that only certain characters like Gandalf can understand (specifically – The Wolves said Eagles save the party from), so you would assume that was the rule for all animals. I think it’s natural for a reader to be surprised that these Eagles show up and everyone understands them perfectly well, without a comment of surprise from Bilbo. 

Dark creatures like Goblins are given somewhat reductive descriptions for my taste, like “Yeah these guy are just wicked at heart.” (I was quite struck by a statement Tolkien writes speculating Goblin may have gone on to be the inventors of weapons of war in our modern times – that’s a slightly more explicit connection between the evils of his imagination and the evils he met in war than I would have expected.) My thing with fantasy is I can accept the idea of purely evil monsters, but then the way the Goblins speak reasonably and seem to have a functioning society makes me not buy the concept of them as purely wicked creatures. Anyway, I don’t mind the role they play as pure villains in this story, but I guess I’m noting my stereotype of Tolkien drawing overly simplistic lines of good and evil is not dissuaded. At one point, the man-bear character Beorn warns the party to avoid being eaten by a wicked bear, and I’m thinking “So, do only wicked bears eat people, while good bears avoid them even when hungry? Or are wicked bears just particularly likely to eat people just to be jerks.” By the way, Beorn is pretty cool – I didn’t remember him from the book or movies. I certainly don’t think the movies had his walking servant dogs.  

Riddles in the Dark

Specifically important chapter to talk about the introduction of Gollum. It brings up another random memory of mine, of a school trip we took to the fancy local theatre for a Halloween-themed event, that I believe was just adults reading classic scary stories to us? I still remember a woman reading us this “Riddles in the Dark” chapter at that event, I assume giving us some context about Bilbo’s adventure before jumping straight to his encounter with Gollum. I don’t remember the reading that clearly, but she must have read it well for it to remain in my mind at all. I imagine she gave a Gollum a creepy but not over the top voice.  (I wonder, if Tolkien told his kids stories about Gollum or a Gollum-like creature before LOTR, did he full on do a weird voice for it? ) 

I think I knew at that age what Lord of the Rings was and understood this was from LOTR, but I don’t think I knew much about it or had seen the movies yet. So I experienced that reading without the film’s visualization of Gollum in my head, just getting the abstract idea of this strange riddle-telling creature. I think that was a good memory to have in mind rereading this chapter, knowing what it’s like to meet this character blind. What the films did with Gollum is worthy of praise, especially Andy Serkis’ performance, but it does ultimately materialize him as a funny little guy. Here he’s weirder and more eerie, because you don’t even know what he looks like other than he’s got some damn big eyes. 

Overall the chapter holds up as a cool little episode. Makes me feel though like I’m not as good as riddles as kids back in the day, given how Tolkien says he expects them to know all this off the top of their heads. I’m aware this chapter was revised to fit the lore of Lord of the Rings better. Which is sort of a literary cheat, but Tolkien’s explanation that the first version was based on Bilbo’s lies about the encounter is amusing. It doesn’t feel like an unnatural retcon, and of course it’s nice the bit were Bilbo spares Gollum ends up taking on greater meaning later. I was somewhat surprised by descriptions of Gollum using the ring’s invisibility to more easily catch goblins to eat. I imagined he had coveted the ring without actually having use for it. And I imagined no one had ever gotten much use out of its invisibility powers. 

Half a Conclusion

All attempts at analytical observations aside, I am enjoying being back on this adventure, which I think is more than justifying its status as a little classic. Tolkien may suffer from his many imitators making his work seem more generic, but I think I can appreciate the simplicity of it. (Of course, I don’t know if my ability to enjoy his take on a children’s story means I’d also enjoy his denser work if I take a stab at it.) I believe I’ll finish my re-read of the book in the new few days. Maybe I can sneak in a proper part two to this write up by the end of the week (apologies if having a two parter messes up the format of this weekly feature). But if I finish and feel like I don’t have new observations, just retreads of what I wrote here… then maybe I’ll just leave a comment with my final thoughts. Of course you’re free to talk about your memory of the whole book in the comments.