Week 6: J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit

The Heroic Journey

After today’s “Hobbit” discussion today and talking about J.R.R. Tolkien, I find that I am even more impressed with this book than I was before. It’s actually my second time perusing through this book and I find it just as fun and filled with adventure as it was before. I think that’s my favourite part of reading this, it’s the fact that it is so sophisticated yet still a campy feel good read and it has it’s serious bits with the “battle of five armies” but it’s still at the core of it, a children’s novel and reminds us of this with it’s numerous songs and comic relief characters. I feel like this book is for that sophisticated child reader where the plot and basis of the novel is so mature and well written but also happy and adventurous and fun and it gives the reader everything they could want and more from a children’s novel.

I think the point that most impressed me about “The Hobbit”, and by extension “The Lord of the Rings” is the fact that J.R.R. Tolkien sat down and created an entire language, elfish, and then spun this intricate web about a world and creatures and people that don’t exist as a result of this. It makes sense for a person to create a world as a basis for a language because language is such a culture heavy part of life. I remember reading a psychological study that explains linguistics through culture as a manifestation of the world around us, for instance a place that has snow all the time might have hundreds of words for snow whereas a country with barely any snow might have just one word to describe it. This is basically, in part, the reasoning behind having to create middle earth, because once he created the language he needed a people whose culture reflected it and was a basis for the language’s formation.

Overall I think the message and feel of the story was very heartwarming and fun. I liked reading as Bilbo started off as the reluctant protagonist and matured into an intrepid burglar. His evolution as a character is, in a sense, inspiring because as he grows into his own and learns to find his confidence in the outside world, you as the reader kind of do the same and so Bilbo’s journey to the outside world kind of becomes your own and gives you the sense of being able to go out and take on the world’s challenges. Another good theme the novel has is overcoming greed and selfishness, which gives the story such a strong moral backbone that I find so important when telling a story.  Basically, for me, this book was an excellent read I was impressed at it’s inception and it’s ability to tie in strong themes and lessons with a tremendous plot line and still manage to be refreshing and lighthearted.