The hobbit

The Hobbit or There and Back Again

By J. R. R. Tolkien

Letter from The Order of Fantastical Reading:
”Dearest Great and highly regarded Wizard and honoured member of The Order of Fantastical Reading.
We are sorry to inform you that we were not very impressed by your review of A Wizard of Earthsea . The summary was dull, the categories irrelevant and your conclusions were rather inconclusive.
Please get rid of the ‘weather category’ and think of something a little timelier instead.
A little tip for you: Looks, Ethnicities and Inclusiveness, that is what captures modern readers!
So, bring your reviews up to date.
Anything with “trans-“something will do nicely…
Yours sincerely,
Hexia de Trixius
President of The Order of Fantastical Reading”

Greetings everyone!
I have a confession. Today I got a letter from the book club, and they weren’t very satisfied with me, as you can see.
Hmm, I must try and do better, then.
Today I shall look into ‘The Hobbit’ or ‘There and back again’. Isn’t than an intriguing title? Apparently the writer couldn’t make up his mind:
Should I name the book ”The Hobbit” or ”There and back again”? Guess I’ll just name it both, and then the readers can decide for themselves which one they prefer.
Never mind the title anyway. I picked this book because there is a nice drawing of a dragon on the front.
And then there is this curios word ”Hobbit” that I honestly don’t know the meaning of. Is it a man? Or a woman? Is it a flower, a pet or a tree? I personally hope it is a flower, that would be very nice indeed.
Well, well, let’s dig into it and find out, shall we?

Summary:

The hobbit is definitely not a flower. It is not a pet either, despite its hairy feet. The hobbit is some sort of a man, though very little of stature. There are also hobbit-women, but there seem to be no trans-hobbits – sorry about that!
They all live in the peaceful hobbit-sanctuary called The Shire.
This one little hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, lives a very boring life in a hole in the ground, doing absolutely nothing but cleaning his shelf, smoking his pipe and brushing his woolly toes. Luckily for him the wise wizard Gandalf comes along (also very lucky for us, otherwise this would have been a very dull read). Then a gang of always-singing dwarves break into Bilbo’s house-hole, eat all his food, call him a thief and lure him into being their assistant. The wizard, being the gang leader, guides them along the way and saves them from danger, foul creatures and their own stupidity. So, as you might expect, when Gandalf leaves them for a moment to go and take care of some other wizard-business somewhere else, the group immediately get themselves into trouble with both elves and giant spiders and so on.

The hobbit Bilbo, apparently a thief after all, accidentally steals a magic ring from the creature Gollum and later unaccidentally a goblet from a huge and frightening dragon named Smaug. Since Smaug has an enormous amount of gold he shouldn’t be too upset about a small goblet. But, you know, dragons are not very good at sharing with others, so he takes a terrible revenge by burning down a nearby village. Mind you the village people did NOT steal the goblet, but then again, dragons aren’t very good at logical reasoning either. The village people eventually clap back at the dragon by killing it.

The dwarves now assume that the entire treasure is theirs to keep. But Bilbo, the kleptomaniac hobbit, goes stealing once again, and this time he gets his hands on the greatest of all jewels ‘the Arkenstone’. Again, it shouldn’t really matter too much, considering the huge amount of gold and treasure everywhere, but dwarves are also very bad at sharing with others, so the leader-dwarf, Thorin Oafshield, gets terribly upset about it.
Then they all spit at each other and shout and fight, dwarves, elves and men and a single hobbit, and some mountain trolls also come along to join in the rave. When all the battling is over and done with, they agree to share the treasure and gold. In the end, Bilbo returns home to The Shire, so you see the title There and Back Again was very appropriate after all.

Review:

I trans-formed the categories a bit. As per demand, the weather category is no longer with us. Instead, I introduce to you a sparkling new and very timely category: ‘Diversity’. Hope you like it.

Yes, indeed there are a plethora of meaningful messages in this story…
Stop cleaning and brushing your feet so much, and go out and touch some grass instead!
Also when you steal something, make sure to use a magical ring that makes you invisible so you don’t get caught.
And then of course: Always listen to the wizard.

The evil dragon Smaug is very cool. Top points.

Yes, I can easily relate to this story. The travelling, adventuring, outsmarting trolls, battling evil creatures and saving the day.
In fact, this story has many similarities to my own diary.

The grumpy dwarves and the greedy dragon are highly realistic, yes.
However, it is very unlikely that a great and wise wizard like Gandalf would be a smoker. Every wizard knows that it is terrible for your health and magical aura! We much prefer a nice cup of tea.

Though strictly speaking there is no mention of hobbits knitting anywhere in this book, hobbits are creatures of homely comfort and it would be obvious to assume that they would be knitting! Probably not socks, since they already have quite woolly feet, but maybe a nice scarf!

Gandalf is a very capable wizard, rightfully reflected in his impressive long, white beard. Gandalf also wears a pointy hat and big boots. Now, that’s what I call a true wizard!

There is a really great variety of species in the story. Dwarves, hobbits, humans and variations of trolls and goblins. Very good!

Conclusion

I enjoyed this book, I would absolutely recommend that you read it sometime. It gives a realistic look into the life of a wizard and his loyal followers. Furthermore, I learned something – now I know what a Hobbit is!
Unfortunately I can’t give it top points, as I got a headache from all that constant singing.
I’ll give it 6/7 wizards hats.

There you have it. Thank you for reading, have a magical day and may the hair on your toes never fall out.