The Hobbit

Finally! I've fulfilled my long awaited desire to read the fantasy classic, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.  I've always punished myself for having not read nearly any of the essential fantasy novels as I am a fan of the genre, but sadly have been deprived of much reading all together.  The Hobbit is a great novel for anyone to read, wether they're a fan of the genre or not, I personally enjoyed it quite a bit.

I've never read The Lord of the Rings (though I intend to soon), but I am very much a fan of the movie adaptations by Peter Jackson.  Probably the biggest difference I can see between the two is that Tolkien seemingly wrote The Hobbit as a children's book rather as an epic fantasy novel, which is obviously the category to which LOTR would fit.  Being not just a normal children's piece, but rather a masterpiece of children's fiction in my mind and in the minds of many others, The Hobbit can be read by both children and adults and both will find an enriching and entertaining experience. 

The Hobbit is often touted as being a prequel to LOTR, but I see them as a separate pieces that correlate in a few interesting ways, but neither is essential to the other.  This is mainly because of the jump in genre from children's fiction in The Hobbit to epic fantasy in LOTR.  It is interesting though, that both of Tolkien's tales are the definitive masterpieces of their own genre thus making them of the same importance, just in different ways entirely.

Though the similarities between the two aren't of real consequence or importance I did find many of them very enjoyable especially if you've read or seen LOTR before you read The Hobbit and you find yourself thinking: “That's where Bilbo got the coat of mithril and his trusty sword “Sting” that he handed over to Frodo after his move to Rivendale!” or “Here come the eagles to save Gandalf and the other “good” guys just in the nick of time!”

I found the story to be very inventive for it's time especially, as this is no doubt the source  to which almost all fantasy derives.  I found myself happily flipping the digital pages of my ePub document to read about Mr. Baggins and his dwarf companions, never getting bored of their adventure.    The adventure is an extremely streamlined one and we find our protagonists never caught up by their obstacles for very long.  I feel like this makes it for a more captivating read for children but this quality is not without it's downside.

The one thing that was a little lacking for my tastes was character development; Bilbo was a very fleshed out character, Tolkien cleverly and subtly informs the reader of every aspect of the hobbit's  personality throughout the story, and how he changes from a regular timid unmotivated creature to a great burglar that learns to trust his instincts and lucky nature.  Few other characters have even close to this amount of depth however, even the second most important character, Thorin, isn't really included that much until near the end of the novel.  This fault certainly isn't a large one because it is  obvious that it's purposely intended to be a concise tale, with not a lot of room for each character to have all of their back history and thoughts to be put on display.  This is apparent in many scenes where Tolkien will push the story forward when a character leaves such as Gandalf, giving the reader a “you don't need to know where he's going, that's not part of this tale.”

All and all I think The Hobbit is not only a children's masterpiece, but also a great work of fiction.  I was so inspired by this book actually, that I've begun doing several character concepts and environments based on Tolkien's introduction to Middle-Earth.  I look forward exploring Tolkien's universe with the LOTR and possibly even The Silmarillion.

-Dan

... EPIC Fantasy metal... a must! Opposed to the Japanese metal from last week I'm actually a fan of the folk/fantasy metal genre, however cheesy it maybe! ENJOY~~!
Equilibrium - Blut Im Auge