“There was a terrible storm; the stone-giants were out hurling rocks, and at the head of the pass we took refuge in a cave, the hobbit and I and several of our companions…”

“Do you call two several?”

“Well, no. As a matter of fact there were more than two.”

“Where are they? Killed, eaten, gone home?”

“Well, no. They don’t seem all to have come when I whistled. Shy, I expect. You see, we are very much afraid that we are rather a lot for you to entertain.”

“Go on, whistle again! I am in for a party, it seems, and one or two more won’t make much difference,” growled Beorn.

Gandalf whistled again; but Nori and Ori were there almost before he had stopped, for, if you remember, Gandalf had told them to come in pairs every five minutes.

“Hullo!” said Beorn. “You came pretty quick – where were you hiding? Come on my jack-in-the-boxes!”

“Nori at your service, Ori at…” they began; but Beorn interrupted them.

“Thank you! When I want your help I will ask for it. Sit down, and let’s get on with this tale, or it will be supper-time before it is ended.”

“As soon as we were asleep,” went on Gandalf, “a crack at the back of the cave opened; goblins came out and grabbed the hobbits and the dwarves and our troop of ponies-“

“Troop of ponies? What were you-a travelling circus? Or were you carrying lots of goods? Or do you always call six a troop?”

“O no! As a matter of fact there were more than six ponies, for there were more than six of us-and well, here are two more!”

Just at that moment Balin and Dwalin appeared and bowed so low that their beards swept the stone floor. The big man was frowning at first, but they did their very best to be frightfully polite, and kept on nodding and bending and bowing and waving their hoods before their knees (in proper dwarf-fashion), till he stopped frowning and burst into a chuckling laugh; they looked so comical. “Troop, was right,” he said. “A fine comic one. Come in my merry men, and what are your names? I don’t want your service just now, only your names; and then sit down and stop wagging!”

“Balin and Dwalin,” they said not daring to be offended, and sat flop on the floor looking rather surprised.

“Now go on again!” said Beorn to the wizard.

“Where was I? O yes –  I was not grabbed. I killed a goblin or two with a flash-“

“Good!” growled Beorn. “It is some good being a wizard, then.”

“-and slipped inside the crack before it closed. I followed down into the main hall, which was crowded with goblins. The Great Goblin was there with thirty or forty armed guards. I thought to myself ‘even if they were not all chained together, what can a dozen do against so many?’ “

“A dozen! That’s the first time I’ve heard eight called a dozen. Or have you still got some more jacks that haven’t yet come out of their boxes?”

“Well, yes, there seem to be a couple more here now – Fili and Kili, I believe,” said Gandalf, as these two now appeared and stood smiling and bowing.

“That’s enough!” said Beorn. “Sit down and be quiet! Now go on, Gandalf!”

The first time I read The Hobbit as a teenager, I wasn’t particularly impressed. I thought I had read better fantasy novels. And that is how this book may appear to someone who reads it without knowing Middle-earth. A lovely children’s story, but nothing spectacular.

Therefore, when I reread it as an adult, I was shocked. As I read the arrival of the Dwarves at Bag End (which is still one of my favourite parts in the book), I kept thinking: Wait! Wait! What’s this? This is not the book I read when I was a girl. This is fantastic!!!!

And this is the essence of The Hobbit to me. Like his protagonist, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, there’s more to this story than it meets the eye, and on many levels. It is in itself an enjoyable story of a person who thinks he’s a very normal, not very special guy, and who discovers in himself a strength that nobody (not even him) had ever suspected (except maybe a certain wizard).

But it’s also a story that now sits firmly inside Tolkien’s universe. If you can read the many hints to the larger story, you’ll start to see a broader meaning.

As I reread it this time, I enjoyed discovering these little gems, this links to the larger story, and connect not just the events but the ideas to a more universal outlook of life.

This is The Hobbit. A small story that can give you far more than you ever imagined.

The Hobbit by #Tolkien may seem a nice children’s story, but nothing spectacular. Yet there's more to it than it meets the eye #readingcommunity Click To Tweet

I was a Tolkien fan far before Peter Jackson filmed his trilogy. When the trilogy came out at the beginning of the 2000s, I had already read Tolkien’s main books and fell (quite happily, I should say) under his spell.

At the beginning of this year, I joined the readers’ community Litsy. There are all kinds of activities going on in any given moments, many of which are readalongs, where people read a book at the same time and then discuss it. I had mostly stayed away from that because I thought it was too demanding on my daily routine. But when someone came up with the idea of reading Tolkien’s main work, one chapter a day… well, you guessed it, I just joined and who cares of my daily routine!

I have immensely enjoyed it. We read The Hobbit in July, and we are now reading The Two Towers.
It has been several years since last I read anything by Tolkien, and honestly, I didn’t remember how much I love Middle Earth. The complexity of the world, the ideas at the heart of characters and places.
There are many funny episodes both in The Hobbit, (like the one I’ve quoted – Beorn never fails to make me chuckle) and a far darker story like The Lord of the Rings. As well as very deep, dense ones, very epic ones. It would be disconcerting if it didn’t make so much sense in this context.

Tolkien has informed a significant part of my understanding of writing fantasy. I learned from him the love of history and the idea that history can guide our speculative imagination, can root it in reality even when this is not so obvious. I learned from him the importance of connecting the dots, that everything is connected to everything else and that this creates ideas and meanings that no single idea would be able to sustain alone. I learned from him to respect the reader and to give them the best I can, the most realistic, believable made-up universe I can conjure and that that’s what I should aim for.

Rereading Tolkien today is an incredible experience for me, and I wanted to share it with you.

READ MY ARTICLES ABOUT TOLKIEN ON MY MEDIUM PUBLICATION

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One of the readers in the #LotRChapterADay group talked about this book back when we started reading. She says it is fascinating if a bit dense. In here is the complete first draft of The Hobbit, which was quite different from the published one, which explanations of why Tolkien decided every single change.

After publishing The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien wanted to change The Hobbit once again, to atone it to the main work. It turned out to be a story far darker than the one we know. He let a few trusted readers read it, and one of them commented that it was a great book, but it wasn’t The Hobbit. So in the end, Tolkien didn’t publish that new version. But parts of it are in this book as well.

Sounds like something I want to read.

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In post is part of the Thursday Quotables meme. If you want to discover more about this meme and maybe take part in it, head over to Bookshelf Fantasies

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