Fire and Water (The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien)

Member Name: Jake Speed

Product:	The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
Date:	12/11/09 (113 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun

Disadvantages: The songs maybe...

The Hobbit is an enduringly famous fantasy novel by JRR Tolkien and was first published in 1937. This is a book I tried to read unsuccessfully a couple of times while at school and always found absolutely tedious for some reason. Chancing upon a copy a few weeks ago, I decided to give it another whirl and was surprised to rattle through it in about three days and enjoy the novel a great deal. The story concerns Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit ('little people about half our height') who loves the quiet life and the comforts of his house - which is quite literally built into the ground. 'It was a hobbit-hole,' writes Tolkien 'And that means comfort.' Bilbo's house is like something out of Jules Verne with portholes and a sleek tube-shaped hall. His favourite sound is that of his kettle whistling and he appears to spend most of the day either baking cakes, eating cakes or thinking about eating cakes. It's fair to say that hobbits, and Bilbo in particular, have a fairly pleasant and relaxed lifestyle.

However, Bilbo's rather sedate and enviable life is turned upside down by a visit from Gandalf the Wizard. 'Gandalf!' says Tolkien. 'If you had only heard a quarter of what I have heard about him, and I have heard only very little of all there is to hear, you would be prepared for any sort of remarkable tales.' Gandalf brings with him a company of dwarves who are about to undertake a perilous quest in search of far away gold guarded by a dragon and - although he doesn't know it yet - Bilbo is to travel with them as their 'burglar'. 'I have chosen Mr Baggins and that ought to be enough for all of you,' says Gandalf to the unconvinced dwarves. 'If I say he is a burglar, a burglar he is, or will be when the time comes. There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself.' Bilbo is soon a reluctant participant in the epic adventure.

The adventure takes our heroes deep into the foreboding Misty Mountains where they are troubled by goblins and trolls and frequently become lost. The book is essentially a series of encounters between Bilbo and his group and the strange, magical and often dangerous creatures and people that lurk in the wilds of Tolkien's fantasy landscape. 'Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted,' writes the author. 'They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones. 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.' Bilbo ends up lost in a dank underground cavern where he meets the troubled and frightening Gollum who engages him in a game of riddles with the stakes being Bilbo's life. 'A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo's heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering.' Bilbo's encounter with Gollum is rather creepy but very intriguing when he happens to accidently stumble across a strange ring that grants the wearer the power of invisibility.

The long journey of the characters in The Hobbit serves to transform the humble Bilbo from a home dwelling and slightly nervous person into a hero who will inspire many tales and songs. You identify quite a lot with Bilbo as he camps out in dark woods, never quite sure what is going on or where he is as he dreams of being in his house with the kettle whistling and something nice to eat on the stove. The transformation of Bilbo is nicely developed by Tolkien in the story as he slowly begins to earn the trust and respect of the dwarves. 'As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and a jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.'

Bilbo is a great character to follow the adventure through as he frequently becomes separated and runs into all manner of trouble and the author is inventive in coming up with little cliffhangers and piling danger upon his characters - as when Bilbo and the dwarves are being hunted by goblins and Wargs, Wargs being essentially wolves, but crafty, cunning wolves who can talk. When Bilbo, Gandalf and the dwarves are trapped in tall trees with countless Wargs prowling the ground below (and goblins about to cut the trees down) the reader will be very eager to turn the pages. 'Maddened and angry they were leaping and howling round the trunks, and cursing the dwarves in their horrible language, with their tongues hanging out, and their eyes shining as red and fierce as the flames.' There is a subtext in the book which I quite enjoyed too and found interesting all about industrialization and nature and how we are losing things that used to be precious and abundant. Tolkien pointedly laces the book with lines about when things were 'greener' or some such and his descriptions of gloomy neverending forests, butterflies in trees and wild landscapes are always very enjoyable.

I could probably have lived without the numerous songs included in the text but it's all part of the atmosphere I suppose. The Hobbit is genuinely creepy at times but Tolkien is always on hand to guide us through the story and reassure younger readers with some gentle humour and a few asides. Bilbo's encounter with giant talking spiders is one of the highlights of the book for me and really rather scary. 'The nastiest things they saw were the cobwebs: dark dense cobwebs with threads extraordinarily thick, often stretched from tree to tree, or tangled in the lower branches on either side of them.' Perhaps the most memorable character in the book though is Gandalf who sort of flits in and out of the book and gets Bilbo and the dwarves out of various sticky situations with his magical wizard capers. I love Gandalf because he's very enigmatic almost in a Sherlock Holmes sort of way, never quite revealing all that he knows but always a few moves ahead of everybody else, like Garry Kasparov in a chess match. You do find yourself - inevitably - often imagining Gandalf as Sir Ian Mckellen but then that's not such a bad thing.

The Hobbit is an imaginative piece of escapism that passes the time very pleasantly and is highly recommended.

Summary: Classic fiction for all ages