The Hobbit - Book 45

I had never read the Hobbit by Tolkien before!  Can you believe it?  I had heard little bits and pieces when my husband read it aloud to the kids (once with the older kids, once with the younger) and for a while the kids really liked to take out a radio play on audio from the library and I'd hear bits and pieces when they were listening.  But for some reason, I never really got the storyline, though I knew about Bilbo and Gandalf and that some dwarves were involved, dwarves with funny names that I never could keep straight.

So about two weeks ago I set out to remedy this hole in my education by reading The Hobbit.  I found it very charming and delighted in J.R.R. Tolkien's writing style, so quaint and cozy.  Halfway through the book though I began to wane.  So many twists and turns and adventures out of the blue.  I have trouble with fantasy in that it doesn't hold my interest very much.  I keep looking for some deeper meaning, wanting to see it as an analogy for something else.  I have been expanding my fantasy reading.  I enjoyed C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce, for instance, because I felt there was a lot of rich theology there for the plumbing.  But it seems to me that The Hobbit is just a yarn set in a landscape inhabited by goblins, wargs, dwarves, elves, men and a wizard and a dragon.  It is a wonderful yarn, but for me it could have been told in half the amount of time.  I simply lost interest as the book went on.  I kept flipping ahead trying to figure out why the book was taking so long to end!

I'm glad I read it.  Now I know Bilbo much more intimately than before.  I'm looking forward to seeing the movie with my kids when it comes out.  I had no idea what the Lord of the Rings was about when those movies first came out.  For some reason my parents never got into Tolkien and so I didn't grow up reading them.  I guess that is the reason I was so ignorant!  The first time that I heard of him was in college, where the same guys who owned bongs and played Dungeons and Dragons raved about this series of books.  I thought they were 'druggie lit' so to speak and never paid a bit of attention to them.  So it wasn't until I was in Catholic homeschooling circles that I learned they were considered wonderful, good literature.

Lately, I've been reading a lot of what I think of as boys books.  I just finish Treasure Island and I'm in the middle of reading Journey to the Center of the Earth.  Along with The Hobbit, there is nary a woman in any of these.  Is there one female character in all of The Hobbit?  I don't think so.  Interestingly enough I was just in an online conversation about the lack of good books for boys.  What?  I think people just aren't looking hard enough.

And my final comment is that October is a wonderful month to read The Hobbit in!   It was enjoyable reading about goblins and other fairytale like characters presented in a way that wasn't modern day creepy.

If you want more books reviews, please visit this: www.read52booksin52weeks.com  (once again I can't seem to link!  Grrr!  Very frustrating!).