The Hobbit: The Desolation of Stories (2/3)

So far, the Hobbit was on the lines of what I was expecting. Whenever I open up this book and read inside my head, I feel like my grandfather or an old man is sitting down and telling us a story from memory next to a fireplace. That makes it sort of like Winnie-the-Pooh episodes where there's a narrator, telling us a story about the loveable bear. Another thing I noticed was the use of dialogue. A common aspect about modern books is that whenever there's an interesting or significant event going on, characters always speak dramatically. "WHOA! What just happened?" "Is this real?" "Watch out!" Whenever our main character Bilbo Baggins have something going on, dialogue isn't used too often. However, the author portrays exactly what's happening, which way who's going, and how Bilbo feels at the moment. In other fiction books, when action happened, I felt as if I was right next to the person, running along with them and feeling the same emotions as them. For this book, I felt like I was sort of looking at all of this from the sky, next to the narrator friendly stating everything that's happening. Basically, it was easier to feel sympathy than empathy. Also, the narrator occasionally says "I," "you," or a random personal thought in parentheses, and explains a certain magical creature in the middle of an event. While Bilbo is hiding from wolves, the author says, "I will tell you what Gandalf heard, though Bilbo did not understand it...Goblins do not usually venture very far from their mountains, unless they are driven out and are looking for new homes, or are marching to war (which I am glad to say has not happened for a long time)" (Tolkien 94). This style of writing lay a fantasy feeling right off the bat, and sort of reminded me of Alice in Wonderland as well.

Although I appreciated the cozy way this was written, I was disappointed that it doesn't really keep me captured and hooked onto the story. It kept saying something along the lines of, "Something big is gonna come this way," but nothing humongous seemed to have happened yet. The story started out extremely ordinary to portray the life of an extremely ordinary hobbit born into an extraordinary, adventurous family. At first his ordinary ways prohibited Bilbo from wanting to go on an adventure, but slowly his family's wild genes start taking over him. I can start to see that he wants to be a mischievous hobbit, just like his mom. In the beginning of the book, Bilbo turns down an opportunity of adventure by saying, "We don't want any adventures here, thank you!" (Tolkien 6). Later, when he encounters trolls in his adventure, he changes attitude by attempting to steal from them. The author narrates, "Of the various burglarious proceedings he had heard of picking the trolls' pockets seemed the least difficult...Bilbo finally plucked up the courage and put his little hand in the troll's enormous pocket" (Tolkien 34). Right now it feels like I'm only getting a bite of corn, squash, and stuffing for Thanksgiving, but I expect a giant turkey to come at the end. Bilbo's happiness is rising and falling, but slowly increasing throughout his journey, so for now, I'll have to be patient and read through Bilbo's growths and changes until I the very end. After all, there should be a reason why this has been famous for the last 80 years.