The Hobbit

The Hobbit is the first one of Tolkien's book that I've read; I haven't even read the Lord of Rings (a fact because of which I constantly suffer criticism). Anyways before I get into a triology I decided to give The Hobbit a try and let's just say I'll be reading LOTR soon.

If I was asked to define this classic in a sentence I would say 'a charming tale about friendship, adventure, treasure and discovering oneself, with beautiful poetry'. I think I might love the little poems this tale has more than the actual book itself. Here's an excerpt

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale, enchanted gold

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep
In hollow halls beneath the fells

Do you get what I mean? Look at the pretty, rhyming prose!

Anyways, the story is about a hobbit who lives a comfortable, ordinary life but then gets swept away in a quest for stolen treasure. At first the dwarves (who are hunting back their treasure) don't care much for small, fat Bilbo but along the way they have many little adventures and Bilbo proves himself to be a clever little fella. Truth be told I really don't know what to say about the book. I liked the story, it's the kind of book both adults and kids can enjoy. There's a lot of subliminal meaning behind the text e.g. Bilbo's greeting of 'good morning'.

But all the same I didn't quite enjoy the story as much as I thought I would. Tolkien was the one who discovered the whole world of high fantasy and I owe the guy a lot for all the books I've enjoyed. But after him there have been many high fantasy books and I'm sorry to say some of them may actually be better than the hobbit. The three main things that ruined the book for me were :

1) The lack of female characters. Except for a small mention of Bilbo's mom. there were absolutely no women int he story.

2) The info-dump. I felt that there was lot's of information being thrown around and I like the modern method of subtly providing the reader with information.

3) The descriptions. Tolkien's descriptions helped me picture the surroundings properly but most of the time they just made me confused. The countless descriptions of the land, trees, rocks, mountains began to annoy me and I found myself either rereading the paragraphs or just skimming the descriptions.

So it was a good book but not that good.