REVIEW: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Title: The Hobbit

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien

Publication Date: August 15th 2002 (First published 1937)

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Format: Paperback

Pages: 351

Rating: 4.5/5
Blurb: In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent.

Review: A couple of years ago, fourteen year-old Ely thought that reading The Hobbit sounded like an excellent idea and so she borrowed it from her school library- she hardly managed to get past the first chapter. Fast-forward, April 2012: Ely decides yet again that she will try to read The Hobbit- this times she gets five chapters in before she puts the book down again. December 23rd, 2012 rolls around and Ely realises she has six days until she is going to see the movie with her friends which means six days to read the book. 

 

And so began my third attempt of reading The Hobbit and finally, my first successful attempt. If you happened to read my book to movie adaption review (which will be linked further down), you'd known that despite my original difficulty with this book, this time around after the first few chapters I found myself really enjoying what I was reading. As mentioned in the book to movie, I fell in love with all the characters and the world fairly quickly (some more quickly than others), as well as the narrative style that has an aspect of teasing about future events to you. 

 

Out of the three parts (determined by where the movies will end, or rather where they are rumoured to end)- the first and last parts were definitely my favourites. The first part because of the characters, objects, places etc. that were introduced that I was aware of from my very limited knowledge of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the third part because of all the action that was happening and ultimately how everything wrapped up. 

Sometime in 2013 I plan to actually pick up The Lord of the Rings books for the first time and hopefully enjoy them as much as I enjoyed The Hobbit!

You can see the book to movie adaption review here

Questions for you...Have you seen the movie? If yes, and if you've read the book- which did you prefer? And finally, if you've read The Lord of the Rings- did you enjoy them?

BOOK TO MOVIE: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Adventure

This review only covers the parts of the book featured in the first movie; a full review of The Hobbit will be posted early 2013.

Book:

At first, I found it really difficult to get interested in the book- I will admit that I had previously picked up this book twice over the last two years and was unable to get very far at all, however this time around I was determined to press on in the hopes that I could finish the book before I went to see the movie. Luckily for me, after the first few chapters I found myself actually enjoying the book. The style of narrative intrigued me, while it focuses on Bilbo and his experiences most of the time, there are parts that slip into an unknown narrator voice that teases us with little comments on what is to come- these comments made me anxious to read on so that I could discover exactly what they were referring to. On top of this I quickly learned to love the characters- Bilbo, all the dwarves and even (okay, I lie- especially) Gollum. I know some people may think I’m a fan of The Lord of the Rings or epic fantasy novels, but honestly I have yet to read LotR (though I will in the future) and my experience in epic fantasy novels comprises of 100 odd pages of Game of Thrones- which is why it surprised me that I enjoyed the first third (in relation to the movies) of this novel so much. Even if you think fantasy novels aren’t your thing or whether you detest LotR with all of your might- I suggest giving The Hobbit a go, you might be pleasantly surprised like I was.

Movie:

The thought of a movie that went for one hundred and sixty-nine minutes had me almost dreading the night and mixed reviews of the movie did not help much either. On one hand friend’s had said the movie was ‘the most boring thing they’d ever seen’ while others were already counting down the days until the nest movie was released- and while I had enjoyed what I’d already read of the book, who do you trust when it comes to movies?

The very start of the movie (as my friend’s agreed later) seemed a bit superfluous- while it was good to have Frodo and older Bilbo interacting and setting the story up to begin, there were parts of that scene that seemed to drag on when the subject was necessarily needed at that part. After this, of course, comes the introduction of the dwarves- possibly one of my favourite scenes in both the book and movie. The atmosphere that was set by the ‘merry gathering’ extended into the audience and the songs and actions of the dwarves had most of the cinema laughing especially with Martin Freeman’s (Bilbo Baggins) expressions.

Moving on to the actual adventure, I adored the stunning shots of ‘Middle Earth’ and even more of ‘Rivendell’ and the mountains and cliffs surrounding it. In fact, I found the entire movie really aesthetically pleasing and the special effects including the goblins, orcs and the creatures were amazing too.

Another thing I really enjoyed was the element of storytelling and flashbacks; I especially enjoyed the story of how the dwarves lost their homes and how that was shown in the movie rather than just told. Finally, I really enjoyed Martin Freeman as Bilbo and was pretty happy with the casting of the dwarves too- for me Martin really bought Bilbo to life and made me adore him even more (I will admit that I am a fan of him as a result BBC’s Sherlock). I can’t wait to see the remaining two films- if they are anything like this one, then I don’t think I’ll be disappointed!

Remember that if you’d like to see a full review of the book to check back early next year!

x Ely