The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien

With approximately 15,000, often second rate, opinions on ‘Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers’ being published a day here on Ciao at the moment I felt it was time to take a few steps back. Back to a time before the first film, ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’, was released, before the books of LotR’s (yes they were books!!) were even in existence. Back to the time of The Hobbit and I'll give you a second rate opinion on that instead.

Bilbo Baggins (the ‘hero’ of our tale) is happily living out his peaceful, adventure free life in The Shire. In fact this is the place where all of Hobbit-kind do also live out their lives in much the same way, little aware of the dangers and strange creatures that inhabit in the wider lands of Middle-Earth.

Now I suspect 90+ percent of you have seen at least one of the LotR’s films or have read one of Tolkien’s (the author of this story ‘The Hobbit’) epic novels or, perhaps most likely, done both and so will be familiar with the lands of Middle Earth. For those who are not, the realms of Middle Earth are the lands in which Tolkiens huge fantasy adventures are set. And they include this one – the Hobbit.

As I’ve already mentioned in this somewhat disjointed opinion Mr Bilbo Baggins is a Hobbit. The Hobbits are a group of short, human-esque peoples with curly hair and leathery feet matted with fur. They live out a simple life in their beloved Shire much in the way that human villagers would have done in the days of old. They do not do such exciting things as have adventures. Or should I say they didn’t for within The Hobbit the first of many a respectable Hobbits adventures is to begin.

With a Hobbits keen love for food it is unsurprising that our story begins (give or take a couple of pages) in the comfortable but hole-like home of Bilbo at tea time. A tea time that slips rather rapidly from normal to odd in the extreme for poor old Mr Baggins. You see, much to his surprise his house is ‘invaded’ by a band of Dwarves, led by one Thorin Oakenshield, and the great wizard Gandalf the Grey. I use the term invaded in the loosest possible way as they enter his house without the use of any force.

Anyway the Dwarves seem to believe that Bilbo is not, as is truly the case, an ordinary Hobbit but a master thief. So good a thief in fact that he is to accompany them on their quest to regain great caves of gold stolen from them by the mighty dragon Smaug many years ago. Peace loving Bilbo is understandably rather shocked by this as he is about as far from a master thief as one man (or Hobbit) can be. It looks, at first, unlikely that Bilbo will accompany the Dwarves on their quest but somehow, through much persuasion on the half of Gandalf, inquisitiveness from Bilbo and the pull of great riches should he succeed, Bilbo agrees to travel the long road with the Dwarves towards the Kingdom Under the Mountain where the stolen gold lies.

Now I’m not going to be silly or nasty and continue to tell you the great tale of Bilbo’s adventures through middle Earth as it would ruin the storyline for those who have yet to read it and those who have already done so will be familiar with it anyway. What I will say though is that their journey is certainly not without it’s troubles (for it wouldn’t make for very exciting story telling if it were.) Along the way the party is to meet, among others things, Trolls, Goblins and rather evil spiders and Bilbo is to find a certain ring that gained rather a lot of fame in the trilogy that followed The Hobbit. They are to travel over great ranges of mountains, be imprisoned and walk the near endless paths of Mirkwood. What people will do for a bit of gold, hey.

But it takes not a genius to realise that though he faces much toil and trouble throughout the course of the book our friend Bilbo is too survive until the end relatively unscathed and in true coward to hero fashion come out a much tougher individual. Whilst we may already know that this is to be the outcome of the story it does not detract from its reading quality. The Hobbit has, as does its bigger brother, a knack of pulling you in so that you truly do believe that you are accompanying Bilbo on his mission through Middle Earth. It is a fantasy adventure that has you, the reader, hooked right from the start. The character development is also mighty fine. It’s almost as though you know they are real even though you know that they can never have been.

The Hobbit has suffered much abuse when compared to Lord of the Rings but this is perhaps quite unjustified. True the scale and importance of adventure within the Hobbit is not quite at the level of that in ‘The Rings’. I mean here we are talking a mission to reclaim a bit of stolen gold whereas there we are talking the ultimate battle between Good and Evil attempting to control the world. But The Hobbit is still a masterpiece in storytelling told in a way quite unlike that of most other books. What perhaps you must also remember if comparing The Hobbit and LotR’s is that LotR’s is widely acclaimed the greatest book of the 20th century and against this there is very little that will quite reach the same high level.

The Hobbit is a tale for people of most ages. Whether it is described as a children’s book or not is highly debatable but personally I would say it was both literature for an adult or a child. It’s not the most simplistic book to read though so probably around the age of 10+ is a great age to first read the book although this will obviously vary with the ability of the reader…..you may get the odd 5 year old perfectly capable of reading and enjoying the story.

If you’ve yet to read either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings I would have to recommend that you read The Hobbit first. Whilst it is certainly not essential to have done so there is many a reference in the later trilogy to this, which in many ways is a sort of opening chapter to its great heir. I would also, if at all possible, have recommended reading this before LotR’s as having read such a great adventure first and to then step down to the level of Bilbo’s adventures may seem just a tad disappointing. However having said that do not let having seen the LotR’s films or having read the books put you off reading the Hobbit. It is still a tale of the very highest quality and among the greatest fantasy/adventure stories ever written.

The Hobbit is available in several different hard and soft backed editions and also in a number of box sets with the Lord of the Rings books. With an overwhelming urge to read it again I recently purchased a soft backed copy published by HarperCollins (ISBN: 0261102214) for £6.99 from the local Ottakers book store. However having just looked on Amazon the same edition is currently reduced to just £5.59. I would be annoyed except I purchased my copy with book tokens so I’m none to upset really.

Phil :)