Lit. of Horror, Fantasy and Sci-Fi: The Hobbit

"The Hobbit"

"In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit..."

The line that many J.R.R. Tolkien fans recognize--aside from "one ring to rule them all". When people hear the word "hobbit", they think of his stories of Middle Earth. I know I certainly do. I've been a fan of his works for as long as I can remember, but it's only thanks to the films that I knew of them. I have never actually read any of the books because I preferred to see the visualizations of the film adaptations. 

While reading The Hobbit, I found myself nodding to things I recognized from the film: Bilbo and Gandalf's conversation at the beginning, the Dwarfs introducing themselves, the Misty Mountain hymn, and much more. It was certainly shorter than I thought it would be, but I suppose I'd prefer it this way rather than a 500 page read.

After reading it I can see how Tolkien never intended to get this story published; it's in a format I am unfamiliar with, compared to other books I've read in the past. Plus, it's written in the iconic Tolkien style, with the Tolkien grammar and linguistics. Despite this, I still felt like I was going on the same adventure that I knew from the film. But I suppose while reading it, I kept seeing the film in my head, and how it would have been had it followed the book directly. Which I'm glad it didn't word for word, because some of it would be a bit weird to say aloud, even in a fantasy world. 

In my opinion, the book is more tame than the films; but overall, as with the Lord of the Rings stories as well, I always prefer the film over the book because I love the visual storytelling; I struggle with picturing in my head what the author wrote or meant, so seeing someone else's interpretations have been helpful. 

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