Catholic-ometer: 5 of 5
Enjoyability: 5 of 5
Quite a number of five-star ratings have been heaped on this book, and I don't think it's terribly shocking to add mine to the pile. However, those familiar with my somewhat critical reviews of the Lord of the Rings series may ask why, exactly, I rate the Hobbit higher. After all, most people in the modern age tend to almost ignore the Hobbit in favor of Tolkien's later trilogy on the war of the ring. Part of this, of course, can be attributed to the movie version, but what is it about the Hobbit that makes it so special?
I honestly think that the way people ignore the Hobbit may have something to do with its difference in tone from the Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit contains stronger fantasy elements, such as being attacked by a horde of giant spiders, burned almost to death by a dragon, or having boulders thrown at you by the giants in the mountains, and yet, it treats them all perfectly casually, whereas later books would have felt the need to explain these strange happenings. The Hobbit only explains things like this when they're unique, even for Middle Earth. It doesn't take itself as seriously as LOTR did, which actually added to my appreciation of it.
It's a story about a small, peace-loving fellow named Bilbo Baggins, and how he goes on an exciting adventure with the old wizard Gandalf and thirteen dwarves; refugees from the Lonely Mountain, which is now inhabited by the ferocious dragon Smaug. They have many adventures before, after and during their incursion into the mountain, and Bilbo gets to show his mettle as a burglar, a fighter and a treasure-hunter. There are tragedies and battles over the course of the book, and eventually, Bilbo becomes more of a man, and receives honor, riches and the suspicion of his friends and neighbors for doing something so "unexpected."
The goblins, the spiders, the elves, the dragon, giants, Beorn, the dwarves and so on and so forth. It was good, clean fun, and I loved it all. Men factor into this book, but not nearly as much as in the Lord of the Rings, so by and large, this book is about fantasy in its purest form; fantasy people going on an exciting adventure, learning lessons about themselves and their world, doing incredible things, meeting interesting people, and finding themselves well-rewarded for all their hard work. It's the essence of the fantasy story.
Even Bilbo's job as a burglar rarely leads him into doing anything questionable. Yes, he sort of stole the Ring, but Gollum wanted to kill him, so it was his only means of survival. Defending one's survival is enough of a reason to justify this. The same can be said of the meals he stole in the elf prison. The treasure they took from Smaug was really theirs anyway, so it wasn't stealing, as much as taking what was rightfully theirs, and as for the Arkenstone...
The Arkenstone. That's an aspect of the story I found puzzling. Bilbo does eventually justify this by ransoming his share of the treasure in exchange for it, so I guess it's just fine morally. Still, I did find it something of an interesting moral dilemma when I first read this book, which, I guess, just makes the story even better, when you think about it.
I also found the battles exceptionally-good and well-written. They were described about as well as in later works, but I found them more interesting, on the whole, because of the way the movements and actions of the enemy forces were described. They're the sort of battles that one can actually picture in their mind. Not myth-making battles, like the Shelob fight from the Two Towers, perhaps, but certainly very believable ones once the fantasy elements are taken for granted.
It's really hard to write a story about a hired thief who never really does anything morally wrong, and yet, under analysis, the Hobbit seems to be just such a book. A rare and special type of book indeed.
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