The Hobbit

What’s left to be written about “The Hobbit”, one of the great masterpieces of classic fantasy, written by the “founding father” of high fantasy, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien?

“The Hobbit” was lauded by Tolkien’s friend and fellow author C. S. Lewis, by poet W. H. Auden, celebrated for its influence on the entire fantasy genre.

To me, it was the metaphorical door to new worlds... I own both several physical copies as well as several ebook editions. I have read “The Hobbit” in both English and German.

The one edition I value the most is a German paperback by “DTV” from November 1974 with the title (mis-)translated as “Der kleine Hobbit” (“The Little Hobbit”).
It has a ridiculous cover featuring a squint-eyed show more Smaug with butterfly wings and a tiny spider in front of him.



It’s probably the worst cover in “The Hobbit”’s publication history.

This very book, though, is the one my mother read about 35 years ago while we were on holidays in the middle of nowhere in the Bavarian Forest. I asked her what she so concentratedly read and she showed me the cover - I was appalled! A children’s book, obviously!

And she even recommended it to me! To me! Someone who had OBVIOUSLY outgrown childhood at my advanced age of… ten!

I harrumphed and condescendingly told her I had more serious things to do - like beheading the advancing army of stinging nettles with my stick-sword or fighting the fly amanita invasion!

Only after my mother likened the house of our relatives which we were visiting to Elrond’s home (which wasn’t too far off the mark!), after her telling me about the dark depths of Mirkwood, only after all of that did I take her up on her offer and read “The Hobbit” for the first time.

This is how I opened the doors to (high) fantasy for myself and Tolkien was followed by Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan, Joel Rosenberg and many many others. I taught myself reading with Sherlock Holmes but I really started reading with “The Hobbit”.

Since then I’ve read it many times for myself and always felt at home. When my children were old enough, I read “The Hobbit” to them every night and, to make it more “real”, I gave them laminated map print-outs from Karen Wynn Fonstad’s wonderful “Atlas of Middle-Earth” for every step of the journey. For easier collecting, all three got a binder.

I read to them every night and when we were finished with “The Hobbit”, we moved on to “The Lord of the Rings”. (Plus printed maps again, of course!)

Sometimes, I was throat-sore, sometimes I read way past their bedtime but we had a wonderful time. I kept reading to them for many years. (If you wonder: The magic didn’t “stick” fully - none of them are true readers but at least they still own their binders of maps…)

Now my children are adults and I’m back to reading for myself. For me, it was time for a return to the magical world Tolkien created. It was time to return to the cherished memories of my late mother and those reading nights.

For You, though, it is now time to pick up a copy of “The Hobbit” and create your own memories.

Five out of five stars - and two asteroids to beat: 2991 Bilbo and 2675 Tolkien


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Since the days are getting shorter and I could use a little cheering up--and since I recently rewatched the first two Lord of the Rings movies for the first time in years--I thought it a good time to reread the books that had such a big impact on me that I ended up writing my own book with Elves and Dwarves and Fairies.

I actually read The Hobbit much earlier--so much earlier that I had it read to me. My dad must have had the patience of a saint to try to read a novel without pictures (in that yellowing mass-market paperback edition) to a five-year-old who kept asking to go back to see the map. I don't know if I had my imagination already then or if the years I spent remembering the story before I got around to reading it myself, but show more there are some powerful images that have stuck with me:

cozy Bag-End with its pickle jars (multiple), a rainy night with none-too-bright trolls, the fun and funny elves of beautiful riverside Rivendell and the feast-filled corridors of the Elf King of Mirkwood, dark twisting tunnels full of nasty goblins and a riddling creature that may has well be one, dwarves and Hobbits up a tree, a burly but boisterous bear of a man, creepy dark forests with bitterly cold rivers, a town on stilts, and a carefully creeping burglar on the edge of a pile of gold on which perches a most magnificent and sly creature.

None of this is new to the many people who have already read this charming book. But what astonishes me most, on this reading, is how rich that imagery is compared to how scant the descriptions are in places. For all his laborious descriptive prose in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien seems to rely more on feelings for The Hobbit, with quick "visual" sketches filled in by characters' reactions to their surroundings. And those characters' reactions grew to be the chief source of charm for me, the more I read this book over the years. So many grumpy wizards and dwarves and one miserable hobbit all on an adventure together, none of them enjoying it but pushing forward anyway, makes for a lot of humor.

And our narrator is really having a ball with it. It's so easy to imagine Tolkien telling this story to his own children, with its little quirks and asides and comparisons to steam engines and guns that he would never dream of making in his later works. I'm impressed, as well, at the very grown-up sensibility of some of the humorous moments. This particular edition is labeled "young adult" but you rarely find a young adult book that speaks so directly about greed, hypocrisy, and war--it all has to be bundled up in metaphors.

Of course, that's a particular style that may have been peculiar to its time. It's hard to imagine an editor taking on a book written in this style these days. I even wondered while enjoying The Hobbit's wit what The Lord of the Rings might have been like if it was written in the same tone and style. Certainly more people would have read and loved it.

I'm amazed I haven't read this book since I joined Goodreads. Here's to many more readings and noticings and appreciations in the future!

Quote Roundup

*This* is why I love elves:
p. 55) So they laughed and sang in the trees; and pretty fair nonsense I daresay you think it. Not that they would care; they would only laugh all the more if you told them so. ... Even decent enough dwarves like Thorin and his friends think them foolish (which is a very foolish thing to think), or get annoyed with them.
And on it goes. In my childhood imagination, Elrond was like my dad, the description of Rivendell fitting him to a T: His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work*, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. (p. 58) (*I love that Tolkien included work, because there is some work that is very pleasant to do.) If anything, my dad has gotten more like Elrond as he's gotten older. But only the Elrond of The Hobbit--the Elrond of The Lord of the Rings is a different, made-up person entirely.

p. 218) The Master [of Laketown] was not sorry at all to let them [Thorin and his party] go. They were expensive to keep, and their arrival had turned things into a long holiday in which business was at a standstill. "Let them go and bother Smaug, and see how he welcomes them!" he thought. "Certainly, o Thorin Thrain's son Thror's son!" was what he said.
Just wanted to point out some of that plain talk of double-dealing that I mentioned enjoying. It's also, I noticed, the point where references to business and money and greed really picks up. Aside from a little discussion about profits and expenses way back at the beginning of the journey, this is where we start seeing how wealth changes the decisions people make: the choice to help a friend in trouble is much easier when it's a matter of honor, it seems, than when it's a matter of time and time-is-money.

p. 236) His rage passes description--the sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but have never before used or wanted.
Another great, pointed description. This is a pretty grown-up concept for a kid and it says a lot about the world--something to learn, or to recognize, depending on the reader.


p. 310) All was deadly still. There was no call and no echo of a song. Sorrow seemed to be in the air.
"Victory after all, I suppose!" [Bilbo] said, feeling his aching head. "Well, it seems a very gloomy business."
Even someone unfamiliar with Tolkien's life should be able to guess that he had experience with real battles.
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Finalmente li um livro de Tolkien! Penso muitas vezes que podia ter lido livros fantásticos na adolescência em vez de livros do realismo a.k.a Eça de Queirós e "nobéis" a.k.a José Saramago (mas nada ficou perdido). Porém, acho que teria sido mais feliz se tivesse literatura fantástica.
Vale mais tarde do que nunca!

4/5 estrelas.

Gostei mesmo muito de ler O Hobbit. A experiência de leitura teve o seu lado muito bom, mas também teve o seu desapontamento.
Vou começar pelo bom: é dos poucos livros que me permitiu gozar uma leitura com vagar. Isto é, não senti avidez (ainda que me perguntasse o que ia acontecer a seguir). Para mim, a avidez é má, porque sou uma leitora que precisa de tempo para apanhar detalhes, conhecer as show more personagens e cenários, bem como a linha da acção da história. Portanto, valorizo muito literatura que não suscite pressa em ler.
Gostei desta edição vir acompanhada de ilustrações do próprio autor. Ajudou muito a estar próximo do imaginário dele.

Achei interessante o autor relembrar-nos que todos os personagens tinham a sua fraqueza. Não foram criados de forma a serem totalmente boas. Nem os hobbits no fim foram bons!

Thorin no fim ganhou o meu profundo respeito, para um anão orgulhoso e teimoso, assim como rei élfico (Elvenking). Fiquei de pé atrás com este último personagem durante a história, pensei que ia ter alguma grande relevância... afinal, não.

O detalhe do Bilbo querer ver as águias foi um detalhe que não me passou despercebido. Naquele momento, senti também vontade de ver as águias.

O meu desapontamento residiu no fim de Smaug (admito, criei certa simpatia com ele, porque gosto de dragões). É um dragão com carácter nada exemplar, encarna a ganância e a espertice. Mas fiquei com expectativa que fosse o "Cavaleiro do Barril", o "Afortunado" a derrotá-lo e não uma espécie de personagem "aleatória". Acho que foi criada uma expectativa à volta de Smaug, teria merecido ser derrotado de forma épica: "Nunca te rias de dragões vivos, Bilbo, meu idiota."
Dragões são criaturas que admiro muito!

Mas sem dúvida que a parte mais relevante desta história, pelo menos para mim, foi a divisão que o tesouro ia criar entre as raças. Contudo,a história do hobbit ensina:
- um inimigo comum (gnomos e wargs) é motivo de reunião e reconciliação com os amigos;
- os amigos que vamos fazendo ao longo da nossa jornada vão ajudar-nos na batalha final (águias e Beorn);
- depois de morrer, os bens materiais perdem valor e há sempre tempo para o arrependimento (Thorin);
- coragem a ânimo durante tempos difíceis são atitudes indispensáveis, ainda que nos sentimos e sejamos pequeninos num mundo grande (Bilbo);
- o inimigo verdadeiro não é propriamente o que mais está à vista (Smaug);
- há sempre um amigo, que mesmo ausente, deposita confiança e vê mais do que nós (Gandalf). show less

There's hardly anything I can say about The Hobbit that hasn't been said already. It, together with The Lord of the Rings, kickstarted the modern fantasy genre as we know it. That feat alone is enough to rank it as a classic.

However, just because a work is seminal does not mean it is also flawless. Tolkien was a scholar first and a writer of fiction second. Nowhere is this more obvious than here in The Hobbit. The book is foremost about the journey of Bilbo Baggins (hence the subtitle, There and Back Again), not so much about his character. Why, then, does the journey plod so much in the middle? Just because The Hobbit was first conceived as a bedtime story doesn't mean it should put me to sleep. Where future writers would fill the show more empty spaces with character development and interiority, Tolkien instead has a tendency to get into the weeds of describing geography. It makes for an exceptionally well-developed world, but exceedingly dull reading. What makes it most frustrating, to me, is that Tolkien proves he can execute well-paced plots both fast ("Riddles in the Dark", "Barrels Out of Bond", the whole Battle of the Five Armies, including its setup) and slow (the entire beginning of the journey, "Queer Lodgings"). It created a sort of whiplash going back and forth between phenomenal writing and waffling on about nothing for 20 or so pages.

I posit that a lot of this (as well as most of the criticisms levied against The Hobbit and its sequel) is a sort of "Seinfeld isn't funny" effect. As long as you read The Hobbit early on (it is a children's book, after all) and don't have any frame of reference as far as fantasy, it is probably one of the most magical books you can ever read. For anyone who's read other fantasy works released in the post-LOTR era, you might be left wondering just what all the fuss is about (and struggling to stay awake doing it). show less

The wonderful prequel to The Lord of the Rings series; The Hobbit's charm lies in the fact that it is a stand-alone story. A reader new to Middle Earth can read the story without being lost--there are fewer references to far off places and peoples than in the Lord of the Rings. However, Tolkien added enough hints of the history and mythology of Middle Earth to give the book greater depth.

Reread again in 2022 (this is probably the 10th reread over my life) and this time around I noticed I was enjoying Bilbo's terrible practical outlook while all of the dwarves, elves and men around him are being melodramatic. This book improves with every reading.

"May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks."

Who would have thought that this little book with a little man would be the genesis of a legendarium?

One of the very first things that stood out to me in "The Hobbit" is the narrator, how he cozily addresses the reader, and occasionally makes tiny off stage remarks that adds flair to the storytelling. You can almost hear the continuous yet subtle cracks from the fireplace, along with the soothing creak of the leather as Uncle Tolkien slowly leans back in his armchair and unfolds his world of fantasy and wonder just for you. And this very unfolding is a noteworthy aspect of the book, as the scale of the story starts small and then gradually expands one step show more at a time. This allows the author to establish friends, foes and mythos without overwhelming the reader - so you can take a bite and properly digest it before you're served another. Albeit two facets do fall short, with the first one being that there's a tad too much plot armor. The second one which did not work for me was the introduction of Bilbo's many companions. It's hard to keep track of them all not just because of their numbers, but their names are also, although jokingly, very similar and this really lessens their brunt.
Bilbo Baggins, by the way, is our protagonist, our hobbit. He's in his 50s, and quite content to never truly be challenged and get out of his routines and comfort zone. In some sense, withering caused by convenience. It's difficult not to see it as an allegory to modern life of western civilization. An allegory that seems to only have become more relevant, and perhaps more obscene in its truth, as we have moved a quarter into the 21st century. At the end of our story - a story that touches on many themes - Bilbo undeniably returns as a changed man, but he also starts out griping that he forgot his handkerchief, signifying the change he undergoes.

As we tread through the trials and tribulations of Bilbo and his company, we're provided with a pacing that feels well balanced. Between the perils and pauses, the adventure is given enough room to breathe to set up its locations, and introduce interesting characters along the way, such as one peculiar being who has an affinity for riddles. All put together, it doesn't feel rushed, slow or like it's wasting time. It stays fresh, and the narrator may even tell you he does not know what happened at a certain point, or that it's not essential to chronicle everything during our ensembles rest. I quite like this within the frame of how the story is told, as both a clever way to skip ahead, but also leave some mystery behind and something up to the reader's imagination.
I like how Tolkien manages to weave the tale of Middle Earth into our world and connect them. It's only done a few times, but that makes it more effective. One such example is that you're given the very map that the expedition is using and describing in the book. And I particularly liked how the proverb "out of the frying-pan into the fire" was given an origin story, and how it was worded differently in the times old. It is cleverly inserted to function as a spark of truth that make it seem as if this story did indeed occur long, long ago.

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

Tolkien does not mince words, but uses them to great effect. Every word seem to count in bringing the world alive and communicate its presence and significance. One such example comes when we approach a forest which is not just described as black but that it stands as a "frowning wall before them", illustrating it clearly and effectively as an imposing threat. The pen of the professor proves itself versatile from start to finish with rich descriptions, memorable imagery, and small rays of morality that provide moments of insight, making you think more than once. The greedy outburst of one character is described as, "the sort of rage that only is seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but have never before used or wanted." Although I found it a little too on the nose, it was actually rather striking at the same time, and it made me contemplate the materialistic society we live in now and how we live our lives in this condemned digital age.
Songs portray the different cultures you encounter on this adventure, and add some variation. Some of the songs do show that a younger audience was intended at times. It also shows a different era before the advent of recorded music like today, a technology that was still relatively new when "The Hobbit" was written, where knowing and singing songs were more prevalent. To some extent, the songs in the book train your imagination as they demand something of you, to truly indulge in them. I enjoyed trying to put my own rhythm and rhyme to the songs in a feeble attempt to bring them to life. With that being said, as the story progresses, I would definitely say that there are too many songs introduced and I started skimming past them, contrasting my more enthusiastic involvement in the beginning. My favourite, however, is without a doubt "Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold".

If you are on the cusp of undertaking the journey into Middle Earth and The Lord of the Rings, then you would not be amiss to start that journey here, because it is a charming and touching one. Even though it is different from the Trilogy, it lays a solid foundation, and will heighten the impact of the scrolls concerning the Ring. You should not be deterred by the fact that "The Hobbit" often is referred to as children's literature. This little book with a little man is accessible to everyone due to it is written with such sophistication that it can please adults and children alike. show less

Like so many others here, I read this book as a child and fell in love. It spurred me on to read “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and began a relationship with high fantasy that I happily maintain to this day. As you can imagine I was expecting to relive the excitement I felt at 10, but like most readers my tastes have changed. Luckily “The Hobbit” has elements that all ages can enjoy.

I think one of the great strengths of this book is it’s narrative style. Frequently while reading the story felt more like a conversation with one of the craftier storytellers I’ve ever met. That delighted me as a kid and it still does. In fact, I read portions of the book aloud to whomever was nearest (which is what I do whenever I find a show more passage I like) and it sounded especially good. I’m not sure how much of that was intentional, but better researchers than I have pointed out that Tolkien refined his tale while reading it to his elder sons. This “storytelling style” makes this novel very accessible to younger readers, and to the grown-ups who share “The Hobbit” with them. The conversational style keeps this book from falling into the trap of “The Lord of the Rings”, which are bogged down by descriptions of everything in painful detail.

As far as I’m concerned “The Hobbit” is a classic. It’s got a plot that’s quirky, fun and reasonably well paced, characters that amuse even though they've got the depth of a pancake, and a narrative tone that keeps you smiling. I personally prefer this book to “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which took me ages to read because the slow pace and epic descriptions bored me. show less