"The Hobbit"

“The Hobbit, or There and Back Again”

Written by J.R.R. Tolkien

Review written by Diana Iozzia

As a new fan of the film series “The Lord of the Rings”, I found that reading the source material was vital to my further enjoyment. In reality, reading “The Hobbit” was a completely strange experience to me, because as much as I wanted to like it, in comparison to “LOTR”, I felt that it fell flat for me.

“The Hobbit” follows the first major adventure we see Bilbo Baggins in. There are also great, interesting details about the world of Middle Earth, the history, and the types of creatures that exist in this realm. I found many of the characters to be familiar to me, as I have seen the films. In addition, there are fun and exciting other characters that I was reading about for the first time. The broad spectrum of Middle Earth was very loveable, especially with the wonderful scenery and descriptions.

The book starts out with an ordinary morning for Bilbo, interrupted by Gandalf and rascally dwarves, begging him to accompany them for their next adventure. Their goal is to recover the reign of the Lonely Mountain and treasure stolen by the great and devilishly clever dragon, Smaug. During this great and whimsical adventure, Bilbo and crew run into many interesting creatures.

I felt that I enjoyed this story, in a fun, childlike way. This reminded me of Disney movies I used to love, like “Peter Pan”. I missed, however, the more serious and more truthful aspects about humanity, that I came to love in “The Lord of the Rings”. The horrors and toils of war, evil, the dark sides of humans, and love were absent in “The Hobbit”, save the fifteen pages dedicated to the Battle of the Five Armies.

We have the villain, Smaug, who is a really cool antagonist. His clever dialogue and language are a delight to read. In addition, the initial meeting of Gollum was a really fun one. Gollum and Bilbo engage in a lightning round of riddles that was a really fun portion of the book. As mentioned earlier, this is more of a whimsical and silly book, rather than the hearty balance in “LOTR”. There aren’t many intense and sad scenes, which was strong in contrast to what I was hoping for.

In the end, this was a very entertaining read, but it was not as exciting for me as I expected. Now, onto the daunting task of reading “The Lord of the Rings” and the rest of Tolkien’s work. Tune back in four years, probably.