Reading 1001 discussion

The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien
4/5 stars

“Why, O, why did I ever leave my hobbit-hole!”
My first time reading The Hobbit and my first Tolkien, I enjoyed them both. What an imaginative story. I tried to read this book to my son when he was in elementary school but he was not interested, I could not get past the first page. I am glad that I decided to finally read it on my own. I did see the movies when they came out so I had a visual reference as I was reading. Overall I liked Bilbo Baggins and the host of characters he comes in contact with. It was a fun adventure and I look forward to continuing with the series this summer with Lord of the Rings.

Diane wrote: "The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien
4/5 stars

“Why, O, why did I ever leave my hobbit-hole!”
My first time reading The Hobbit and my first Tolkien, I enjoyed them both. What an imaginative story. I tried ..."

I really enjoyed the Hobbit and this is my second time to read LOTR and the book really is a foundation for knowing what is happening in the Fellowship of the Ring.

I have throughly enjoyed re-reading this classic that I haven't read since high school. Lots of fun and many adventures along the way, and yet within one volume so many colorful characters and so much character growth for our burglar.

4 stars

I may be the only reviewer of The Hobbit who does not think it is perfectly enchanting. Honestly, I wavered between 3 and 4 stars... and I cannot quite explain why. So, I will start with saying that fantasy and young adult are both book genres that I mostly avoid, and that is influencing my view I am sure. But, I made up my mind to read the classics and this one was picked by a book club I am in so I read it. I actually had high hopes as I read the Harry Potter series finally a few months ago and it blew me away. Wow! It was such a revelation and pretty much had me convinced that I had been wrong about myself and that I was a fan of both fantasy and young adult books. And, perhaps this book simply doesn't live up to the HP standard.

I did wish that I had watched the movie at some point. (And that is something I cringe to say as a person who always finds books far superior to movies.) Perhaps the movie would have made all the creatures found in this book more real to me. Perhaps I would have better pictured the countryside, the characters, the details. But generally my favorite books paint such vivid pictures that I cannot help but see what the author wants me to see. And I wasn't quite there with The Hobbit. Several times I stopped the app, rewound and listened again. Several times I stopped the app and asked my son to describe a certain character. I just did not follow the story well enough. This may be all about me... or it may be that the book simply wasn't as good as HP and I had set the barre high.

Kelly wrote: "4 stars

I may be the only reviewer of The Hobbit who does not think it is perfectly enchanting. Honestly, I wavered between 3 and 4 stars... and I cannot quite explain why. So, I will start with s..."

Kelly I had the same opinion of the LOTR series. I did like this one but not LOTR. I too liked the Harry Potter series which I read to my son when he was little.

I'm glad to hear that I am not alone.

Read in 2011
The Hobbit or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien is a prelude to The Lord of the Ring Trilogy and a fantasy novel and children's book. I am glad I was finally able to get this into my reading schedule as I want to read The Lord of the Ring. This is the story of Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit, and his quest. The wizard Gandalf and a band of dwarves take the hobbit along as their burglar. The quest is to return the land and treasure that has been taken by the dragon, Smaug. This is a fun read and very appropriate read for young people. I loved the sentences and found them fun just to repeat so I think this would be a fun book to read aloud to your child. It was published in 1937. Themes include self growth, maturity and heroism which may have been influenced by the author's experience in WWI.

****

The novel that set the foundations of Middle-Earth, which was subsequently developed further with Lord of the Rings. My Tolkien journey was unusual, as I saw the LOTR movies first, read the book after, then saw the Hobbit movies and finally got to read the story that began it all. The writing style appears much simpler and more accessible to younger readership than its much longer sequel. All the elements of a fantasy world are there, and it is understandable that even in the late 30s the book experienced such a level of popularity. This one should remain in the corpus of classics for a long time.

The classic foundational book for the Lord of the Rings and the first beginnings of building the world that has captured the imagination of the globe through movies and books. In my opinion, the book suffers a bit from being the first and having to carry so much weight in introducing so many of the types of characters, creatures and landscapes. It also suffers from being a bit of a bedside story. Although the individual adventures do build up to the war at the end, we are introduced to one of our most heroic characters, Bard, only moments before his heroic action. Tolkien often has to go back and explain what happened after the action instead of within the body of the action. Also, we are introduced to the creatures/characters one at a time (hobbit, wizard, dwarf, troll, goblin etc. ) rather than some introduction to the world that become clearer as the adventure proceeds. However, that is all minor compared to the fact that the book triggered a phenomenon that really grabbed the world's imagination. Tolkien was very knowledgeable about and keyed into elements of older fantasies, myths and legends and used these elements to build a new world that nevertheless rang true to the old ones.