I admit that I didn't quite know what I was picking up when I opened The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way.

At the time, I was three quarters of the way through The Hobbit for the umpteenth time, but because I was reading it to my daughters, the book felt both new and familiar. The Hobbit is not a novel that would have survived today's publishing world and the attention span of children is even shorter than that of adults. Even with a cast of dwarves, goblins, wizards, elves, a dragon and, yes, a hobbit, it's hard not to find something that is interesting to a child. Bring the story to a child’s level isn’t a stretch, though translating it into bite size portions for bedtime reading does help. The story feels written for children (despite the gravity that Peter Jackson seems to imbue on the story with dark and violent scenes of giant spiders, murderous goblins, and deadly orcs).

My girls are young: only 3 and 6. Even though both are children, they are at different stages of development and maturity. The 6-year old understands most of the plot, the character development, and remembers who is who (though sometimes the sheer number of dwarves and the paucity of development of any besides a few of them does confuse her when their names pop up). On the other hand, my 3-year old latches on only a few things, requiring that I “spice” the story up, so to speak, in order to keep her attention. For example, she stays interested when I create voices for the different characters, speaking deep and powerful for Thorin, meek but courageous for Bilbo, and confident but gravelly for Gandalf.

For a while, her favorite voice was Gollum’s. Only after her older sister explained that Gollum was the "bad guy" did she stop asking me when Bilbo was going to see Gollum again.

Pictures help, too, and that’s how we get to The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way (after that protracted detour). After repeated questions on the distinctions between elves, dwarves, and hobbits (I dodged the “orcs versus goblins” question altogether), I headed over to the library to find a book of art inspired by the novel. Not a set of promotional photographs for Peter Jackson's movies, mind you, but art from the last sixty year or so years since the novel was published.

While looking for the art (perhaps I should review that one, too?) I found sitting on the shelf The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way. I’ve read The Hobbit dozens of times, but somehow I’ve never spent much time thinking about the philosophy behind it. I’ve read more and thought more about The Lord of the Rings in that regards, mostly, I think because it comes across as a weightier book. The parallels with J.R.R.Tolkien’s experience and view of World War II are obvious, while The Hobbit was published prior to the war and was primarily aimed at a juvenile market. Like juvenile fiction in the modern era, though, The Hobbit is perhaps a far more interesting and deep book than it is often given credit for. In that regard, The Hobbit and Philosophy, which is a collection of essays by various contributors, approaches what is perhaps the most popular fantasy novel of the last century with a serious and, occasionally at least, playful eye.

Here you will essays on Tao, enlightenment, man’s place in society, greed, humility, glory, art and beauty, and more. Some are dry (after all, it is philosophy, right?), and others are light, playful, or inspirational. All are interesting and insightful.

I’ve already burned 600 plus words talking about how I even found the book, and I’ve not said much about the essays other than this: it’s worth reading.

I’m not really the philosophical type and I don’t think it helped me make The Hobbit more interesting to my daughters. But it did make the book more interesting to me, which is saying something about a book I already love and enjoy.
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