sigridhr | Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week One

*smashes a bottle of champagne over the post* And we're off!

Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week One (The Hobbit)
Chapter I: An Unexpected Party
Chapter II: Roast Mutton

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 barefoot gauntlet walk across a set of lego pieces.
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 nerdy. Or too excited.
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 11th January 2013 to Friday 18th January 2013. However, the post will remain open after that point, so you're more than welcome to continue discussions on.

(I'm cheating a bit, as it's not quite the 11th here yet, but I want to get this up before I go to work tomorrow, and 6am posting is just asking for disaster). Have at it, guys! :)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sigridhr

Chapter I;

"It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife."

It's funny, because the Hobbit mentions a bunch of things – like faries - that are really interesting but don't seem to pop up anywhere else. Where do the fairies live? I mean, they must be at least Hobbit-ish size in order for one to be taken as a wife. Are they chilling with the Entwives?

I love how Bilbo, at 50, is the youngest (I think). They're all older than dirt. Thorin's 195. And Gandalf is so old he remembers riding Woolly Mammoths. He and Galadriel swap stories about the time they chased down a Saber-Toothed Tiger.

"Bilbo rushed along the passage, very angry, and altogether bewildered and bewuthered—this was the most awkward Wednesday he ever remembered."

I love this quote so much! There's something so succinctly hilarious about it – especially with the use of words like bewildered and bewuthered.

I have to say, I like Thorin's entrance in the film better than him getting squashed under Bombur on the mat. (Instead he gets squashed under Bombur in a sack by the trolls).

Speaking of things that were good in the film – that song. Oh, dear, god. That was perfect. Perfect.

"As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves."

This is interesting, especially given how everything plays out in the end. This is Tolkien's sort of temptation of the craftsman – Fëanor falls into this trap too, with his love of the Silmarils. It's not greed flat out, though – it's a love for things they've wrought. It's similar to Galadriel's works in Lothlórien with Nenya – makes you wonder what the dwarf rings could've been if Sauron hadn't got his hands on them.

Except, I remember reading once that Tolkien based the dwarves on the Jews (I think it was in the letters, but I don't have my copy here so I can't confirm – does anyone else know for sure?) – which was part of why they'd lost their homeland – so this sort of avarice is a bit awkward given Jewish stereotypes.

Pompous-prolix!Thorin makes me happy.
Why don't Fili and Kili know their quest? They're his nephews. Headcanon: he didn't tell them anything so that Dís wouldn't find out why he was taking them with him. "Oh, don't mind us. We're just going for a walk. To Erebor. See you in a bit!"

Gandalf is like a used car salesman trying to pawn off Bilbo as a successful burglar.

"He looks more like a grocer than a burglar" / "I think I am right in believing that you think I am no good. I will show you. I have no signs on my door – it was painted a week ago –, and I am quite sure you have come to the wrong house. As soon as I saw your funny faces on the door-step, I had my doubts. But treat it as the right one. Tell me what you want done, and I will try it, if I have to talk from hear to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert."

I wish they'd kept this bit in the film. Poor Bilbo has a load of Dwarves turn up uninvited (by him), who proceed to eat him out of house and home, sing him a song by way of explanation and then insult him – I love that he refuses to take it. BILBO IS NOT PUTTING UP WITH YOUR SHIT, THORIN.

And he's so unbelievably brave here. They've been going on about Dragons, and he says 'you've got the wrong man, but I'll step up to the plate to help you anyway, so ha.' I FUCKING LOVE BILBO.

Also, great were-worms??? What the hell are these? Are they from Harad? WHY DID THEY NOT RIDE WERE-WORMS INTO BATTLE ON THE PELENNOR? (I am having epic Dune/Tolkien crossovers in my head right now).

I love how they need Bilbo because 13 is an unlucky number. Hahaha. Triskaidekaphobes, the lot of them.

The bit about apprenticing men to the dwarves is interesting - especially since the dwarves are cast as pretty insular (admittedly, it's from the film, and I can't remember if it's in the books as well, but the line from Elrond about how the Dwarves care nothing for the struggles of others comes to mind). Also notable that they don't bother to grow any food for themselves, apparently – and get by just on trading. The Hollin gate at Moria also suggests that dwarves used to be great neighbours, actually. And, for a people who refuse to teach their language to outsiders, are very friendly.

And I love how Thorin talks about making toys, of all things. I find that really sweet. There aren't many dwarf babies, are there? Since there aren't many dwarf women... So, they must sell most of their toys to the humans.

Chapter II;
Gandalf says "Great Elephants!" Great. Elephants.

Possibly stupid question, but:

"These parts are none too well known, and are too near the mountains. Travellers seldom come this way now. The old maps are no use: things have changed for the worse and the road is unguarded. They have seldom even heard of the king round here, and the less inquisitive you are as you go along, the less trouble you are likely to find."

- we're in Arnor, yes? So, are they talking about the line of Elendil? If so, almost no one was aware that the heir to the throne was pottering about the countryside without any soap and refusing to bathe, but apparently the dwarves were?

(On the trolls:) "not to mention their language, which was not drawing-room fashion at all." Oh, Tolkien, you classy snob.

"[Thorin] came expecting mischief, and didn’t need to see his friends’ legs sticking out of sacks to tell him that things were not all well." That is the most hilarious mental image.

As much as I enjoyed the version of this scene in the film, I love Gandalf's making them argue. It's hilarious.

So, Fili and Kili carry out the pots of coins from the troll hoard – what the hell do they do with them? If they keep them, they must lose them in the Misty Mountains. Or maybe they use them to pay for Elrond's Luxury B&B.

...

As for more general thoughts – the purpose of the mission is interesting, I think. It's personal, and clearly vengeance is a hot button for Thorin since the mention of Thráin's death has him immediately sticking Sauron on a shit list and preparing to march right up to Dol Goldur, Necromancer or no Necromancer, and give him a what-for.

From the perspective of Tolkien as an Anglo-Saxon scholar it's interesting, of course, given vengeance was a driving force for a lot of their heroic deeds. Beowulf is probably the biggest example of this – Beowulf kills Grendel as vengeance for his attacks on Hrothgar's halls, Grendel's mother retaliates, Beowulf retaliates back, and so on. I think there's parallels between Beowulf's death at the hands of the dragon and Thorin's, too, to be found.

It's interesting – you have Thorin acting out of vengeance, Aragorn who acts, arguably, out of duty (there's Elrond's condition that he become King, which is probably a deliberate echo of Elu-Thingol's conditions on Beren), and people like Éowyn, who become heroes out of a desire for glory. Aragorn is clearly an ideal, which makes Eowyn's type and Thorin's type more interesting. Eowyn is a funny one, because – I love her to pieces, but – she was charged with the defence of Meduseld, and she abandoned it. I think it's Aragorn who says something along the lines of 'a time will come for valour without renown', but that's really, really not Eowyn's style. She's, I think, a very traditional Anglo-Saxon hero as well, in regards to her desire for remembrance and glory in battle, but she achieves it at the cost of her responsibilities – it all works out ok in the end for her, but it could've gone very differently.

Thorin's a bit similar, in the sense that he, and the remnants of the people of Erebor, had just built up a reasonably good living for themselves, and he heads off to go tickle the dragon. And he'd've gone to Dol Goldur too, probably, if Gandalf hadn't told him not to. It's vengeance, yes, but it's done at the cost of people he's responsible to – and costs him his direct bloodline.

Then you have the Hobbits, who'd rather not be heroes at all, but there's something that needs doing so we'd best just get on with it as best we can. And they're the true heroes of Tolkien's works – which I find really, really charming.

Edited (Fixed typo. Probably missed several more. ) Date: 2013-01-11 06:50 am (UTC)

From:

anki_koda

That was a marvelous introduction. I'm reading the Hobbit for the first time in English ad I have to say it is quite difficult to grasp some of the concepts and the words I'm not very familiar with. And yet, Tolkien has a way to put it simple and giving us enough for a pretty clear image of his world to form in our minds. Just take this line for intance:

In a hole in the ground there live a Hobbit.

You may not know what a Hobbit is but you certanly know what a hole in the ground is. It makes you curious to know wwhat kind of creature lives there that it isn't an animal, of course.

Edited Date: 2013-01-11 09:02 pm (UTC)

From:

sigridhr

Yeah, I'd imagine Tolkien's probably hard goings – he's not got the easiest style around. But it's beautiful prose. :)

Haha, you read my mind! I was considering quoting that sentence – you're right: it's such a lovely starting point. It's just the right mix of charming, curious and a humble, quiet beginning to a big adventure.

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Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week One