Sunday, March 17, 2019

An Unexpected Diversion - My Hobbit Habit

People have books they like to read time and again and mine was The Hobbit. And The Trilogy. It was somewhere a little before 1969. My father had returned from a posting in Boston, I think. And he had brought the set back with him. It was literally a set, set within an elegant cardboard five-sided box. As I cannot find a free to share picture of that experience, I offer you a preview of the first book of the series from Amazon:



My father told us the stories, a little bit at a time, every day, when he got home from work. And they were among the first books that I read. I continued to re-read them annually, well into the years of motherhood when I read them aloud to my son.

But, first of all, let me tell you what a hobbit is. A hobbit is like a small person, except that hobbits have furry feet. And they live in a hole in the ground. In fact, that is how the whole concept began. Apparently, Prof Tolkien was quite upset with the nonsense a student had written and he wrote as comment: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." But it was 
Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
The Hobbit can be read alone and some feel that it might be better to read it after tackling The Trilogy. For The Hobbit can be perceived by some as a book for children. Indeed, one can read all of them at any age but Disney and ilk have used business sense to convince some of us that there are books for each age as well as for each gender.

The very first chapter of The Hobbit, The Unexpected Party, is a delight. Imagine how you would feel if some thirteen dwarfs and one wizard gate crashed your place and demanded to be fed. You would be fed up! And it would not be a good morning at all. Except that that is how the story sort of begins:
“Good Morning!" said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.
Gandalf is the wizard in the story. 
"What do you mean?" he said. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"
"All of them at once," said Bilbo. "And a very fine morning for a pipe of tobacco out of doors, into the bargain.
However, the wizard appears thick skinned and Bilbo, the hobbit, decides to be firm:
"Good morning!" he said at last. "We don't want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water." By this he meant that the conversation was at an end."What a lot of things you do use Good morning for!" said Gandalf. "Now you mean that you want to get rid of me, and that it won't be good till I move off.”
The story is bound to make you chuckle, not only at first reading but even later, when memories bubble up.

So, the dwarfs and the wizard make themselves at home in the hobbit hole and soon begin to sing: 
Chip the glasses and crack the plates!

I do hope you haven't seen the film and I do hope you won't. The book is much better.

Bilbo's heart sinks as the purpose of the party slowly manifests: to set off on a treasure hunt fraught with dangers. 
The dark filled all the room, and the fire died down, and the shadows were lost, and still they played on. And suddenly first one and then another began to sing as they played, deep­throated singing of the dwarves in the deep places of their ancient homes; and this is like a fragment of their song, if it can be like their song without their music. 

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.

To compound matters, Bilbo is to be a key figure in the enterprise. But I leave you to discover the joys of Tolkien's tale on your own. 

For those who are already smitten with the story, let's see what other devotees have done. A tidbit for the newbie: a hobbit is fond of food. So, it was a delight to discover AN UNEXPECTED PARTY MENU AND RECIPES

For music to read by, do try Music from Middle-earth.

So I leave you to gate-crash the story and hope to follow this unexpected diversion of mine with some Roast Mutton - the name of the second chapter of The Hobbit.

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