The Hobbit

I am a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien primarily because his books are what got me to love reading. Before sixth grade, I detested having to sit down and sift through inane things like genre, theme and plot because there wasn't anything particularly exciting about doing that. Also I didn't much get it at the time. However, for some reason The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit changed all of that for me and I fully believe what helped with that is it's complete submersion of fantasy. Everything about the world of Middle Earth is well plotted out and interlinked which enables the reader to fully submerse themselves into a reality that is not their own and that was something that I sorely needed at that time. I got so hooked in fact that I was able to finish the trilogy AND the prequel story in one month exactly, still retaining most of the information to this day. I have been an avid reader (especially for fantasy) ever since.

I do admit that I read the trilogy first and if there is one thing I could say about Tolkien's writing it would be that it's surprisingly inconsistent. I'm a little surprised that I didn't notice that much of a change throughout the separate books of the trilogy but that most likely is because they were originally written as one super-novel. Even though they pertain to the same universe and include some of the same exact characters and settings, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and even The Silmarillion each have a very distinct way that they were written. The first is read very much like a fairy tale or as if we are listening to Bilbo Baggins recounting his adventures to us himself around a campfire munching on our suppers. The second is an epic journey that has many twists and turns and narrators with much more ground to cover than the first. The third is sadly very much akin to a dry text book of the worlds history down to what star was located where and when. Although the second work is highly entertaining and drags the audience to the edge of their seat, the first is probably the most liked among agile fantasy readers. Yes, the story still takes you on an emotional roller coaster ride but you are aware of the safety net of it just being a story. However, this blanket of comfort might be a personal feeling since I had read the trilogy first therefore knowing that Bilbo had to have lived.

The reading of The Hobbit is almost like reading a good lore tale. I think the best comparison I can put it to is like reading Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier which is completely immersed in Irish myth and folk stories. Even though the book follows a main protagonist with a clear plot, antagonist, climax and resolution it still had the distinct aura of being a legend. If you replaced the figures with that of Ancient Roman mythology it would still have the same feeling about it when reading the novel. That is how I felt personally when reading The Hobbit. It caused me to reminisce on the times my dad would read to me in bed and I had the time to picture the action as if I were watching a movie. It was the same only this time I could read at my own pace with my own voice and still picture it with my own sequential images. In a sense, learning to read this particular novel helped my to learn the fundamentals of good reading techniques in general leading me to always hold a special place for J.R.R. Tolkien's work in my heart. I even own The Silmarillion even though I can guarantee that I will never EVER be able to get past the first twenty pages.