topics: |  fiction | fantasy | classic

This is an absolute classic.  This is the swashbuckling adventure that
launched the Lord of the Rings.  Together, these novels are the most
well-read (and re-resd) fantasy fiction today.

If you haven't read it, be prepared to be considered illiterate by many.

Background

Tolkien was a scholar of Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and worked as an
etymologist  at the Oxford English Dictionary from
1919-1920.  Simon Winchester,  in his Meaning of Everything:
The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary, has this to say on the volume
that he worked on:

	[Tolkien] laboured on W.  There are not Greek or Latin words that
	begin with W, and these words go back to the oldest strata in the
	language.  The etymology of walrus was one of the difficult
	challenges unfurled by Tolkien.  p.206

	Tolkien's Farmer Giles of Ham has a story "The Four Wise Clerks of
	Oxenford", referring to the four parallel editors of the OED a the
	time - James Murray, Henry Bradley, William Craigie, and C.T. Onions.

The story

For Tolkien, The Hobbit was the consolidation of many stories that evolved
over the years.  The Hobbit, as well as the first two volumes of the Lord
of the Rings, were written around 1928 for his son and daughter while he
was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College at Oxford; it was only
accidentally that it came to the notice of a publisher and was eventually
published in 1937.

The story relates the adventures of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, who, along with
the wizard Gandalf and a group of dwarves, helps recover the dwarves' horde
of gold from the fearsome dragon, Smaug.

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

This was an action rather uncharacteristic of hobbits, who live in
aesthetically done underground homes.  They are small - about half our
height - smaller than dwarves (and without beards).  Normally
non-adventurous, they "incline to be fat in the stomach", and are generally
happy.  It was particularly unexepcted of the Bagginses, whom
	people considered respectable, because they never had any adventures
	or did anything unexpected...
yet Gandalf and the dwarf Thorin manage to convince the 50-year old Bilbo
to join them on this quest as the "burglar".

During this journey, Bilbo finds the ring of Power, which can make its wearer
invisible, and this ring is what launches Frodo Baggins on to the story
related in the trilogy Lord of the Rings.

With his deep knowledge of anglo-saxon myths and languages, Tolkien actually
constructed several rich languages (detailed in the appendix to Lord of the
Rings v.3).  In fact, he spent a lot of his time populating Middle-Earth,
constructing its myths and languages and history.

The other aspect of the story which makes it believable is that the main
characters - particularly those on the "good" side - are all a mix of good
and evil - all have their weaknesses, which makes the characters much more
believable than in earlier tales.  e.g. Thorin's ambition and greed,
which makes him fall out with Bilbo.  This is a trend that has continued into
modern fantasy as well (e.g. Lupin in Harry Potter).

The hobbit remains a powerful read.  Re-read it now!

Excerpts

They are (or were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than
the bearded Dwarves. Hobbits have no beards....They are inclined to be fat in
the stomach; they dress in bright colours (chiefly green and yellow); wear no
shoes, because their feet grow natural leathery soles and thick warm brown
hair like the stuff on their heads (which is curly); have long clever brown
fingers, good-natured faces, and laugh deep fruity laughs (especially after
dinner, which they have twice a day when they can get it). - p.16

[Goblins] can make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones.
They can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled dwarves,
when they take the trouble. ...  It is not unlikely that they invented
some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the
ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for
wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not
working with their own hands more than they could help; but in those
days and those wild parts they had not advanced (as it is called) so
far.
				- p.70

Mt. Erebor song

For over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.
[...]

The pines were roaring on the height,
The winds were moaning in the night.
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches blazed with light.

The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon's ire more fierce than fire
Laid low their towers and houses frail.

The mountains smoked beneath the moon;
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom,
They fled their hall to dying fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.           	[his feet: the dragon, Smaug]

For over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!
	Dwarf's Song in Bilbo Baggin's house, p.27-8

Riddles with Gollum

A box without hinges, key or lid.
Yet golden treasure inside is hid.

Voiceless it cries
Wingless flutters
Toothless bites
Mouthless mutters

What has roots as nobody sees
Is taller than trees
    Up, up it goes,
And yet never grows?

	[ans: Eggs, Wind, and Mountain. p.81-3]

Under the mountain dark and tall
The king has come into his hall!
His foe is dead, the Worm of dread,
And ever so his foes shall fall.

	[Dwarves Song, after regaining the treasure, ch. 15, p.249]

--
Gandalf: "You don't really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and
escapes  were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are
a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are
only quite a little fellow in the wide world after all!"

"Thank Goodness!" said Bilbo laughing, and handed him the tobacco jar.
		- p.286-7; last lines.

Goblin's Marching Song

	from ch 4 ~ Over Hill and Under Hill

Clap! Snap! the black crack!
Grip, grab! Pinch, nab!
And down down to Goblin-town
You go, my lad!
Clash, crash! Crush, smash!
Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!
Pound, pound, far underground!
Ho, ho! my lad!
Swish, smack! Whip crack!
Batter and beat! Yammer and bleat!
Work, work! Nor dare to shirk,
While Goblins quaff, and Goblins laugh,
Round and round far underground
Below, my lad!

Riddles

Thirty white horses on a red hill,
First they champ,
Then they stamp,
Then they stand still.

---
An eye in a blue face
Saw an eye in a green face.
"That eye is like to this eye"
Said the first eye,
"But in low place,
Not in high place."

---
It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.
It lies behind stars and under hills,
And empty holes it fills.
It comes first and follows after,
Ends life, kills laughter,

	[teeth, sun shining on daisies, dark]
---
Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail never clinking.

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 mountains down.
	[fish, time]

goblin's song

	from ch 6 ~ Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire

Fifteen birds in five firtrees,
   their feathers were fanned in a fiery breeze!
But, funny little birds, they had no wings!
   O what shall we do with a funny little things?
Roast'em alive, or stew them in a pot;
Fry them, boil them and eat them hot?

Burn, burn tree and fern!
Shrivel and scorch! A fizzling torch
To light the night for our delight,
    Ya hey!

Bake and toast'em, fry and roast'em!
till beards blaze, and eyes glaze;
till hair smells and skin crack,
fat melts, and bones black
    in cinders lie
    beneath the sky!

So dwarves shall die,
and light the night for our delight,
    Ya hey!
    Ya-harri-hey!
    Ya hoy!

Review: Peter S. Beagle

For in the end it is the Middle-earth and its dwellers that we love, not
Tolkien's considerable gifts in showing it to us.  I said once that the
world he charts was there long before him, and I still believe it. He is
a great enough magician to tap our most common nightmares, daydreams and
twilight fancies, but he never invented them either: he gave them a
place to live, a green alternative to each day's madness in a poisoned
world. We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers -
thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last
praise the colonizer of dreams.
		- Peter S. Beagle, "About the Lord of Rings trilogy"

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