“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.
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