I remember one day in eighth grade,
my Language Arts teacher started to rant about fiction stories like Harry
Potter. She was criticizing them for being a complete rip-off of the Lord
of the Rings series. While I was reading The Hobbit, I was thinking,
"Ugh, most of this is a cliche of fantasy stories." Then it popped. Other
fantasy books are cliches from the Hobbit and other books before it! It
was sort of like listening to a tape recorder after listening to music
from my phone for a long time.
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| I have reached ze back cover of The Hobbit! |
J.R.R. Tolkien did his best to try
to make Bilbo sound so normal that it seemed almost abnormal, and I can say
that it worked. At the beginning, Bilbo was a lazy, small creature that just
loved to eat a lot, and I'm not afraid to say that I'm exactly like that.
However, I could see Bilbo slowly advancing from that. In the Vonnegut Shape of
Stories, Bilbo started on the happy side. Nothing big was happening in his
life, but he was content with it. When Gandalf, a wizard, came to him with a
journey, Bilbo plunged straight down but was slightly intrigued by it. During
the journey, Bilbo is captured by spiders but is given the chance to show his
companions on the journey that he could contribute. Bilbo kills the spider and
the narrator says, "Somehow the killing of a giant spider, all alone by
himself in the dark without the help of the wizard or the dwarves or of anyone
else, made a great difference to Mr. Baggins. He felt a different person, and
much fiercer and bolder...'I will give you a name,' he said to it [his sword],
'and I shall call you Sting' " (Tolkien 144). Until that point his
happiness on the Shape of Stories had been wagging slowly upwards, and finally
it reached a point where his happiness was slightly higher than when he lived
an ordinary life. At the end of the book, Bilbo returned to his ordinary house
except had made more wild friends, had wilder thoughts, and had more chances to
seek adventure. This book was a bit touching to someone like me. J. R. R.
Tolkien had basically just told me by the fireplace on his rocking armchair
that even a lazy potato like me can go places, learn, and have a chance to live
with journeys beside me. Additionally, I connected well at the part where Bilbo
named his sword, because similarly, most of my friends and I like to name our
instruments. Instruments are little tools that I can press keys and manipulate
to make pretty sounds, so it's something special that's worth naming. That made
me think, "Wow, that Bilbo must love that sword."
I think it would have been nice to
know Tolkien in person and have him read a story to me (I don't know why, but I
keep imagining his voice as Morgan Freeman's). I was sort of frustrated that
his voice didn't really go dramatic at parts that could have been more
interesting if it had been dramatized. However, at the very climax when Bilbo
encountered the dragon and the townspeople slayed the dragon, Tolkien used a
good mix of narrative and dialogue in a way that actually kept my heart beating
and my eyes glued to the pages.
But on top of all that, I'm glad I
finished because now I can finally watch the two released movies that are 343
minutes combined!
I haven't read the book, but I heard that there were a lot of changes in the movie. Don't expect it to be the exact same when you watch it. I watched the movies, and I think that they are pretty good as stand alones. Also, Martin Freeman makes a great Bilbo. :)
ReplyDeleteI tried to read the Hobbit before and came across the same downfalls as you. The stuff that happens is exciting but the narrator's tone makes it less so. I like the storyline, just not the way the author writes.
Oh and also I love the titles to all of your posts!! They're so cute :)
DeleteSeems like a book that I should give another chance. I tried to read The Hobbit once before, but I was bored of it that I stopped reading it after the second page. Maybe I need to give it more time. You have inspired me Hananananna.
ReplyDeleteI read the first 50 pages of The Hobbit (before quitting...) and I watched the first two movies. I really liked "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug", as you read on my TeenInk movie review article. I understand that other fantasy books have copied The Hobbit (just as Chapter 5 of the "How to Read Lit like A Professor" said, stories branch off one another) but I don't understand the analogy at the top of the page (the one with rolling a pencil through the holes of a tape recorder...?) Anyway, I'm definitely looking forward to your next post! What are you reading for nonfiction?
ReplyDeleteI love your blog titles too! They are well-thought out and funny to understand at the same time, but I agree with Alycia, I have never done the "listening to a tape recorder and then rolling a pencil through the holes" thing..... so I don't understand. Other than that, it's interesting to read your thoughts on how Bilbo grew as a character, but why do you say Bilbo was abnormally normal?
ReplyDelete