Marval Movie

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein is the book that started it all, there were of course other fantasy books and more that an abundance of stories and floklore but The Hobbit is the one that started it as big news and really brought together a whole group of people together, so technically you could say that this book started the Nerd culture.

The book starts with Bilbo Baggins living out his comfortable little life in the Shire under his Hobbit hole, every once in a while he has a party and often entertains quests, but most days he just sits outside and enjoys a warm peaceful breeze while smoking his pipe. Until one day when a mysterious figure arrives and offers Bilbo the chance to go on an adventure.  This is of coarse Gandalf "The Wondering Wizard", Bilbo is less than enthusiastic to go on an adventure but he still invites Gandalf to return for some supper later on.  When later on does come there is a knock on the door but on the other side it is not Gandalf but a pair of Dwarfs, and then another, then another, before there are thirteen Dwarfs in total.

While the Dwarfs and later when Gandalf finally appears it is learned that the Dwarfs need a burglar and Gandalf suggested Bilbo, because he new the Took side of his family (who were adventurers, and thinks that there may be some of that spirit left in Bilbo).  The journey must be taken across the land to the misty mountains to the great chambers where there was a great city of Dwarfs but now the Dragon Smaug has taken over and turned the entire mountain city into his personal nest, where he hordes the treasure all for himself. They need to sneak in and take a part of the treasure and if things go really well they'll find a way to kill the Dragon and reclaim the entire cities fortune.

The use of the thirteen Dwarfs seemed unnecessary to me, I think Tolkien really had about six dwarfs with personalities in mind, but he thought for the slaying of a Dragon they might be a bit shorthanded so he doubled their numbers by making every Dwarf a twin (There must be a sever case of nepotism running around the Dwarf kingdom).  You don't really feel that you know the Dwarfs, only by their stereotype, there's a fat one the young ones the tough one. You do, I suppose get a feel for the leader Thorin, a Dwarf descended from greatness and seeks to claim his birthright.

One of the most interesting notes to make about the book is the writing style, Tolkien was an English professor while he was writing the Hobbit so he was naturally an expert on the way things are written, but he is surprisingly defiant on the mainstream way in which most books are traditionally written.  There is actually very little description of the environments and the characters, when we meet Gollum the only description is that he has big round eyes, long fingers and raggedy thin hair, the rest is about the mood, obrolan and the scenario that the characters are in.

The Hobbit is not as big and as expansive as the Lord of the Rings and there's less an enfasis on the fights, although there are a few fight scenes, the Hobbit is more about relying on your wits than anything else so often Bilbo gets out of tricky situations and comes to the rescue by being smart and not just by being the better swordsman.

Tolkien spent virtually his whole life building up the world of Middle Earth, ever since he joined an English club in his teenage years where he first started developing the Elvish language he had been slowly but surely adding to the world and all its complexities. There are things about genres that are virtually requirements for them to work Science Fiction needs to be reasonably fees-able, Comedies need to make you laugh Fantasies need a world that seems like it could exist.  The whole point of Fantasies are to transport you to a whole new world that is not the one that we inhabit and it needs to have a function and a method of the way things work so that we except that they are real and we can become invested in them. Middle Earth is a place with a history and a layout that we become familiar with and we learn to know the people and can see parallels to our own world in them. The Elves are white collar, the Dwarfs are the working class and so on.

One thing that Tolkien injects into his work the most is off coarse himself, while reading you get a sense that Tolkien greatly enjoys a good warm meal, and a comfortable room heated a roaring fire and off coarse tobacco.

It is said that big things start small and that every adventure starts with that first step, Hobbits are very small and Bilbo hadn't taken many steps outside his own patio, but he went on to do great things and was the start of something much bigger than anyone could have guessed.  The Hobbit is a book that takes you places and gives experiences and makes you want to go places and see sights.

Rating: 4 stars out of 4