The Hobbit (1937)

At first it was just a story with characters going on an adventure. Gradually I came to see themes that relate to us mortal humans.
* Conflict between groups
* Conflict within groups
* Misunderstood motives
* Greed
* Deception, betrayal
* Conflicting groups uniting against a common enemy
It provides something to think about.

I have tried many times to read this book and never succeeded until now. Since Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf mentioned it in General conference my wife read it and then I read it. ( )

Seriously. I don't remember as a kid there being this many songs. I must have blanked it out. But yes, there is a lot of singing going on in The Hobbit. My plan is to read the other novels that are part of this universe due to the Amazon list just having the entire The Lord of the Rings books listed as one big read.

We have an omniscient narrator that allows readers to follow the tale of Bilbo Baggins, or The Hobbit. Unlike with the Peter Jackson movie, we actually do get to follow Bilbo and see how he first was conned into being hired as a burglar to a contingent of thirteen dwarfs who are focused on reclaiming treasure lost to them by the dragon Smaug. It is entirely an adventure tale with songs sprinkled throughout and we have Bilbo rising to the occasion throughout the story. This really is a coming of age story about Bilbo even though he is 50 at the time of this story.

I am not going to lie though. Except for the character of Thorin Oakenshield the other dwarfs just ran together in my head. It probably did not help that they all had similar names. Thorin ends up playing a major part of this book and his actions leads to a lot of death and destruction. I like how

The plot is pretty straight forward with as I said Bilbo being hired as a burglar by the thirteen dwarfs (I have no idea why, but I keep typing 13 Ghosts) to help them recover their stolen treasure. Due to this overarching end goal Bilbo, the dwarfs, and Gandalf keep getting into tight spots here and there. We also get the introduction of the character of Gollum who would be so important to the conclusion of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. And we also realize that without Bilbo going on this adventure, this could have led to worse things for his cousin Frodo when he began his own adventure in The Fellowship of the Ring.

The writing is quite good. There are a lot of lines that are said by some characters that cracked me up here and there.

The pacing though I found to be a bit off in some places. For example, the chapter that has the group with Beorn the North-man dragged on for way too long. It picks up again in the following chapter having the dwarfs captured by spiders. And by the way, I totally shuddered throughout that chapter.

The setting of Middle-Earth sounds like a fantasy and yet real at the same time. As you are reading you can pretend that once upon a time before the reign of Man, that Hobbits walked the Earth along with dragons, dwarfs, goblins, and trolls.

One thing to note about my electronic version. It came with illustrations that I felt really did add to the feeling that I had the complete book in my hand. I really liked that added feature, so if you are going to purchase The Hobbit, make sure that it comes with the illustrations. I liked those a lot.

I can't wait to start The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but will probably wait until I have my summer vacation time scheduled so I can have a nice block of time to read. ( )

The beginning of the Lord of the Rings cycle. Professor Tolkien's charming children's story was presented to me in this edition. I remembered at that point that I had read the riddling scene in an anthology of children's stories in the. late nineteen fifties, but this was the first time I had read the whole story. ( )

This was a reread. I listened to the bbc4 production. It was funny and everything i remember about my first read. ( )

I must add a little something to this review: Hairy toes. Sung to the tune of the Everton chant, you know the one, 'Here we go'. If only the movie had thought of this, it would have had everything a Hobbit movie could have.

Hairy toes, hairy toes, hairy toes sung to this: https://youtu.be/Hl9fpAMP1lE. I leave it to the Hobbit experts to fill in the rest. But looking at the lines, a few small cosmetic changes and they'd be perfect for Hobbits vs Daleks.

Here we go, here we go, here we go Hairy toes, hairy toes, hairy toes
Everton is the best we all know Hobbiton is the best we all know
We’re the team, we’re supreme, number one
and we love you Everton. and we love you Hobbiton
Here we go, here we go, here we go
Side by side as we sing along together
E-V-E-R-T-O-N
We’re Everton and we’ll be Everton forever

Everton forever we are Hobbiton forever we are etc etc etc
on our way together
Getting stronger every day.
we are winners all the way

Here we go, here we go, here we go
Everton is the best we all know
We’re the team, we’re supreme, number one
and we love you Everton
Here we go, here we go, here we go,
Side by side as we sing along together,
E-V-E-R-T-O-N,
We’re Everton and we’ll be Everton forever

We’re the new sensation
We’re the talk of all the nation
We’re so glad to wear the Blue
Share this magic day with you

Here we go, here we go, here we go
Everton is the best we all know
We’re the team, we’re supreme, number one
and we love you Everton.
Here we go, here we go, here we go
Side by side as we sing along together
E-V-E-R-T-O-N
We’re Everton and we’ll be Everton forever.
http://toffeetunes.blogspot.ch/2009/05/here-we-go.html

My review follows:

Five things I have to say about Hobbit 3.

1) I had no idea that Tolkien was such a great writer. The line where the dwarf dude says to the kungfu-chick-elf ‘You make me feel so alive’. And where she says in a marvellously anguished way about love ‘It hurts so much’. That I could think up such lines.

(2) Unfortunately when the giant rabbits appeared Manny had just started sucking a Malteser. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried doing that and groaning at the same time. It isn’t pretty. Fortunately somebody in our row knew the Heimlich maneuvre. Personally, the big bunnies don’t bother me the way they do Tolkien nerds. I mean, if you are going to have lines like ‘You make me feel so alive’, does it matter what size the rabbits are?

The rest is here:

https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2014/12/29/five-things-i-have-to-say... ( )