The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien

⭐ 10/10

Another reread, but this one was special. I have basically read a single page of this a day for the past year while my son gets ready for bed. Before I start he always has to see the first picture of Gandalf and Bilbo, then the second picture of Gandalf, then we flip back to the cover to talk about Smaug on his gold. He has also started calling The Shire theme from the LOTR movies the "Bilbo Song", so this is clearly a dream come true for me.

It's hard to think about this book rationally, and there were several things that stood out to me that would not be acceptable in other fantasy books I read. Mainly, there are several instances where something happens that is never foreshadowed or hardly explained, and you just accept it because its a kids book. The raven for example, just happens to overhear, and oh ya they can talk and used to all the time, but only to one specific line of men, and oh ya here is this guy Bard who talks to his arrows (my favourite part) who happens to be of that line, and the raven can give him key information just in time! That's just one example, they also show up at the doorstep and almost the exact perfect time. Tolkien does this thing all the time, the Eagles save the day here and in LOTR, so I am willing to accept it. He even had a word for it, eucatastrophe, so who am I to say I don't like it! It just does feel a bit cheap, acceptable in a book that is clearly for kids.

This book features so many standout sequences. Riddles in the dark, barrels out of bonds, stone trolls. The most powerful to me has always been the end, the downfall of Thorin. This has a ton in common with the major sins characters commit in LOTR, and its clear that Tolkien believes the desire for riches to be the ultimate human downfall. His final line to Bilbo is timeless and beautiful, almost biblical. I took a class in university on Tolkien's philosophies, and the professor called this cardinal sin possessiveness. I remember being shocked at this throughline, from Melkor to Feanor to Sauron to Saruman to Gollum, but Smaug I never thought of until this read! Sits on a pile of gold and does nothing with it, and then the love of gold infects every race involved in the final battle. Everyone except Bilbo that is, whose desire for his quaint life rules all his thoughts. Just a really nice message for kids and adults, a really powerful final message for a book that is mostly one-off adventures.

Another thing I always forget is how Gandalf just leaves them! Getting that safety blanket ripped away is shocking every time, and I love how dangerous the world feels once he is out of the picture. His return is also amazing, just as Bilbo is making his gutsy bargain the wizard is there to praise him.

This is one I will continue to return to as I force it on my children. It works really well as a series of small adventures, but the way the whole story is tied up in the end is why I love it so much.