Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week Two

[sigridhr]

 Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week Two (The Hobbit)
Chapter III: A Short Rest
Chapter IV: Over Hill and Under Hill

Rules

I very much doubt we'll require much in the way of formal rules, but just for the sake of formality and clarity:

• Discussion is welcome and encouraged, as is disagreement. Name-calling and personal attacks will be punished by a blind date with Gollum at the Mordor Fried Warg Emporium. I highly recommend the Mildewed Troll Innards (a deep, earthy dish, with plenty of flavour), and Boiled Nazgul Backside (light and airy, what it lacks in substance it makes up for in its sharp, stabbing taste that will stay with you long after you've left). 
  
• There is no spoiler policy in place. Although we're reading the Hobbit, please feel free to bring in things from other Tolkien works, any of the films, the History of Middle Earth, the Letters of JRR Tolkien, and, if you should like, other literary sources. 
• There is no such thing as too much geekery. Or taking the text too seriously.  
• If you have any concerns at any point, I'm the closest thing this gong show has to a mod, so feel free to get in touch. I can be reached either by PM through this site, or directly by email at sigridhr.lokidottir@gmail.com. 

Discussion on this post will officially run from Friday 18th January 2013 to Friday 25th January 2013. However, the post will remain open after that point, so you're more than welcome to continue discussions on. 

Comments

[j_quadrifrons]

From my book discussion notes:

Bilbo asking, when they first see the Misty Mountains in the distance, if that is the Mountain, is still one of my very favorite parts of the book. <3

I blame the tra-la-la-lally song for the fact that I never really did like Tolkien's Elves very much. (Well, except when I was fifteen. But all girls are obsessed with Elves when they're fifteen, surely?)

Trivia from The Annotated Hobbit (everyone get a copy, this book is amazing): Tolkien originally tried calling the Elves Gnomes, on account of the etymology (Greek gnome/gnosis), but the popular conception of Gnomes as little people with pointy hats killed that for him.

I was quite surprised at how articulate the goblins are until I remembered that the practically-speechless Orcs are an artifact of the movies; in the books, they talk quite a lot and are fairly well-spoken. (Tolkien explains in the appendices that he cleaned up their language quite a bit for publication.)

Also, wow this moves along. Chapter Four and to the Great Goblin already?

[sigridhr]

Yes! I love that line - it's such a nice, little reminder of how completely out of his depth Bilbo is, and how very, very far from home.

Tra-la-la-lally. I try to pretend that never happened. It just does not compute.

Oooh, I did not know that about the Gnome/Elf thing. That's interesting.

Speaking (tangentially) of talking orcs, I was really confused in the film version of the Hobbit, because once Azog has Thorin & co chased up a tree, he speaks directly to Thorin – and I'm pretty sure he's speaking the black speech... So why does Thorin apparently understand?

I think we had more and more speaking orcs as the LotR films went on – there were pretty much none in FotR, but by RotK there were quite a few – although I think a lot of their scenes are only in the extended edition. I think it's important that they do speak – they're already so dehumanized and black-and-white evil mostly, if they're voiceless as well it just wouldn't work for me. And I love the little glimpses you get into orcish politics (for lack of a better word) in LotR.

I suppose it's also worth stressing that the goblins are described as clever. So, they're not mindless monsters.

[j_quadrifrons]

After multiple viewings of the movie, I'm pretty sure that the only thing Thorin recognizes of Azog's insults to him in the tree is his own name and his father's; to be fair, whatever guess he made about the rest of that speech was probably pretty accurate.

(Alternatively, and entirely unsupported by any text but super cool, the Dwarves learned some of the Black Speech during the Dwarf and Goblin Wars, as a military tactic.)

I do love the Orcs in LotR - and I agree, the more they speak the more obvious it is that they're not mindless monsters. There are Orc factions and a certain kind of twisted loyalty.

(Further thoughts on tra-la-la-lally in a separate comment.)

[skadi_of_the_north]

Yeah, I always did find Tolkien's elves in this book to be a bit too tra-la-la for my tastes. And as someone who has not yet seen the film (woe, woe) I am sort of wary of how they are going to expand this small amount of text into a giant first movie, know what I mean?

[bewilderebeest]

As someone who has seen the movie and now just re-read the first four chapters, I'm a little baffled by just how much movie they've made out of the book so far. So, I'm with you.

[sigridhr]

Well, the stone-giants battle could have been a whole movie in its own right, it went on so long. :P

[anki_koda]

I can say I'm pretty curious as to how they are going to play the confrontation between Thorin and Thranduil. How the fight with the spiders against Bilbo is going to happen and, of course how Bilbo finds the Arkenstone and the deads of Fili, Kili and Thorin.

By the way, I'm going to cry on the Third movie just as I cry the first time I read The Hobbit.

[sigridhr]

I will be a wreck when they all die. Seriously. I am not prepared for this.

[anki_koda]

I always thought it was a little bit unfair for them to die. I mean, all the suffering, all the pain to go back to their homes...and then, they just died. It took me sometime to understand why.

Who am I kidding, I still don't get it *sobbing in a corner*