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News from Bree
spymaster@theonering.net
Feb 5 2010, 7:29am
Post #1 of 18
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The Hobbit: a book for adults
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Thanks to Ringer David for sending us this link to a blog post from Daniel Hannen at the Daily Telegraph:
I’m not sure that we properly appreciate The Hobbit as children. We enjoy the story, obviously, and the pace, and the characters. But only now, reading the book to my eight-year-old, am I touched by the pulse of the prose.
It is a book written to be read aloud. Tolkien understood the power of incantation: the way in which, as Philip Pullman puts it, reciting a fine poem makes you feel as if you were voicing words of power, chanting a spell.
Follow the link to read the full article. [Read More]
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Eldy
Dor-Lomin
Feb 5 2010, 3:06pm
Post #2 of 18
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A book that can appeal to all ages
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I wouldn't call The Hobbit a book for adults, because that suggests that it's not one for children. I think it's suited for both. There are parts of The Hobbit that are clearly children's literature, though as Mr. Hannan points out, it becomes darker as it goes on. There is plenty in the story for children, but as the reader ages and learns more you can see more and more layers of detail in the work.
I think it's the same with LOTR. Critics have called it everything from juvenile to impenetrable to all but scholars, but it really depends on what you're trying to get out of it. A child isn't going to understand or appreciate everything in The Hobbit or LOTR, nor would, I think, an adult who has only read it once. You can read either work simply for pleasure, to experience the depth to Tolkien's mythology, to see parallels with real world mythology, or for any number of other reasons. If you're a child you will get one thing, and if you're an adult you will get another. I'm not going to say if one is better than the other though, because I'm simply not sure.
That said, I disagree with Mr. Hannan's implication (despite thinking the article very good; far better than most news sources who write about Tolkien) that The Hobbit is better than the LOTR. I like the later work largely, though not wholly because it goes deeper and farther into the mythology than The Hobbit and shows us much more of the world. They're both masterpieces, but I like LOTR better.
A great read this article, at any rate. 
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hanne
Menegroth
Feb 6 2010, 1:00am
Post #3 of 18
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great article (thoughts re poetry comment and the "hinge moment")
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Thanks for the link! Really enjoyed reading that. It's quite right about the poetry. You can hardly read the bit he quoted (the death of Smaug) aloud without singing.
Second thought:
In fact, both stories follow a similar pattern. They begin in a manner that seems conventional for a children’s tale, then swerve into the not-quite-archaic saga style which Tolkien invented. ... The hinge moment is the arrival of the dwarves in Laketown... The dwarves emerge grumbling and bedraggled from the barrels... still essentially children’s characters. When a Lakeman asks who they are, their leader replies: “I am Thorin son of Thrain son of Thror, King Under the Mountain! I return!” From then on, the story becomes grimmer, and the prose darkens commensurately. I wonder if that will be where they end the first film?
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weaver
Gondolin
Feb 6 2010, 1:21am
Post #4 of 18
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I was wondering the same thing..
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The tone of the story really shifts at the point they arrive in Laketown; if they used this as the breaking point, I could see where they'd choose to make the escape from the Elven dungeons more dramatic, to make that the climax of Film 1.
If they did break here, I wouldn't be surprised if they showed us Smaug flying around and doing a bit of damage on the outskirts of Laketown in Film 1, too, so that he's at least introduced in the first film. Enough to get people's curiousity aroused as to how Bilbo and the dwarves will defeat him...and to also introduce us to Laketown and the cast of characters there, so they wouldn't be total strangers to us when we, and the dwarves, arrive at Laketown in Film 2.
Weaver
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Kangi Ska
Gondolin
Feb 6 2010, 1:47am
Post #5 of 18
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I have thought so for some time (and expressed my thoughts)
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But the writer gave another good reason for believing that this is the break point.
Kangi Ska
At night one cannot tell if crows are black or white.
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hanne
Menegroth
Feb 6 2010, 2:36pm
Post #7 of 18
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like Faramir's story, there may be a temptation to alter this one
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Funny! But I worry it contains an element of truth. Look at how the screenwriters messed with the Faramir story so that Frodo had to overcome and triumph over some obstacle at the end of the second movie.
The Hobbit, as you point out, of course does not end with the arrival at Laketown, so Tolkien felt no need to have a sort of "completed arc" feeling for Bilbo at this point. He's wet, cramped, miserable, and talking through his nose from a terrible cold. It's far more an echo of his shriek-and-faint state at the beginning of the book than of his new-found heroism.
Though Thorin's declaration and the sight of the Mountain for the first time (with a glimpse of Smaug too) would be dramatic and fab "teasers' for a "to be continued" freeze, I wonder now if they'll want to end the first movie on some sort of good moment for Bilbo, showing he's no longer mostly-Baggins-timid but has achieved mostly-Took heroism. So it's a bit more stand-alone than obviously half of a whole.
And even though defeating the spiders is awesome and engineering the escape in the barrels is clever, in the book he doesn't really get a moment to shine and dwell on after either, first being immediately captured by the Elves and second the focus immediately shifting to Thorin.
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weaver
Gondolin
Feb 6 2010, 2:41pm
Post #8 of 18
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Yes, that would certainly blow the purists right out of their seats...
Me, I've got no great ideas of my own as to how they'd make the escape more dramatic -- but I could see where they might think having them slip past a bunch of drunken elves wouldn't pack enough of a punch if they ended the film here. (And they may think that's a bad message on drinking for the kiddies, too..)
My point was that I could see them upping the ante here, if they chose to end the first film at this point. Kind of like the way they added Faramir taking Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath at the end of TTT, when they moved Shelob's Lair to ROTK. Not everyone's cup of tea, I know, but they did that because they felt TTT needed more of a climax at the end in the Frodo/Sam storyline. I could see them doing something similar in the Hobbit films, if they follow that pattern of film making, and split the films here.
And I think if we get a glimpse of the Lonely Mountain and Smaug in the first film, that would be ok, storywise -- we didn't get to Mordor right away either in the LOTR books or films. Why do we have to get to the Lonely Mountain in Film 1?
Weaver
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hanne
Menegroth
Feb 6 2010, 2:56pm
Post #9 of 18
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Snap! We must have been typing (and thinking) at the same time :) //
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Kangi Ska
Gondolin
Feb 6 2010, 3:48pm
Post #10 of 18
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I do not believe that the first half of the hobbit must end on an absolute high note. This half of the story is about Bilbo's discovery of his own potential. It does not need a war or explosions or a cast of thousands to make it a good film. This attitude that it has to be some kind of pot boiler to succeed is simply rubbish. The film should build tension across its span to release it at the end. This can be done as a series of escalating adventure cycles each contributing to Bilbo's transformation with all building to some climax then a release. As this is a continuing story, there should be foreshadowing at the end of what is to come.
Kangi Ska
At night one cannot tell if crows are black or white.
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Silverlode
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Feb 6 2010, 8:20pm
Post #11 of 18
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Thereby inspiring the great Elvish poem...
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Remember, remember the 25th of September
The Dwarvish deception and plot
I know of no reason why the gunpowder diversion
Should ever be forgot
Legolas has a harrowing escape from the collapsing tunnels of Thranduil's halls but loses many friends and relatives in the blast. He leads the company of Elves who set out for Laketown looking for revenge.
It's quite frightening how easy it is to turn any story into a typical Hollywood plot. *shudder*
Silverlode
"Of all faces those of our familiares are the ones both most difficult to play fantastic tricks with, and most difficult really to see with fresh attention. They have become like the things which once attracted us by their glitter, or their colour, or their shape, and we laid hands on them, and then locked them in our hoard, acquired them, and acquiring ceased to look at them.
Creative fantasy, because it is mainly trying to do something else [make something new], may open your hoard and let all the locked things fly away like cage-birds. The gems all turn into flowers or flames, and you will be warned that all you had (or knew) was dangerous and potent, not really effectively chained, free and wild; no more yours than they were you." -On Fairy Stories
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Plurmo
Nargothrond
Feb 7 2010, 12:12am
Post #12 of 18
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More interesting if the naivety of the younger generation "who laughted at the graybeards and gammers who said that they had seen him flying in the sky in their young days" was kept intact? The contrast between the easygoing ways of Laketown at the time of Bilbo's arrival and the memories of the grim older generation is central to the plot, I think.
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Plurmo
Nargothrond
Feb 7 2010, 2:45am
Post #13 of 18
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Shoudn't we at least keep Bilbo's innocence intact?
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What if the markings on the gunpowder-loaded barrels say "Orthanc Snuff?" Unable to control his curiosity, he surreptitiously gets some from a nearby barrel, takes a sniff and then sneezes putting his ring-wearing hand in front of his nose, thus blowing the place up while being ejected through the hatch together with the last dwarf-ladden barrel? There! Stupid but innocent Bilbo impersonates Smaug (thus saving the real deal for film 2) while creating a very explosive ending for film 1.
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Hamfast Gamgee
Dor-Lomin
Feb 8 2010, 12:02am
Post #14 of 18
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In the first chapter of the Hobbit, Thorin does give quite a good description of the attack by Smaug on the Lonely Mountain. It does feature Smaug flying, eating Dwarves, escapes from the mountain, explosions, flames, arrows being fired at Smaug, etc. Well, if that isn't good enough for a flashback and some tempting shots of Smaug, then nothing would be!
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SirDennisC
Gondolin
Feb 9 2010, 2:59am
Post #15 of 18
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A great candidate for AD's Hobbit Horror Thread. /
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macfalk
Doriath
Feb 11 2010, 7:55pm
Post #16 of 18
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It's not a children's story. It's a story for all ages.
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Elf_Maven
Nevrast
Feb 13 2010, 7:33pm
Post #17 of 18
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Or am I just too dense this morning?
What do you see as the other reason for believing that this is the break point?
"Go where you must go, and hope!"
- Gandalf, TTT The White Rider
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macfalk
Doriath
Mar 29 2010, 8:29pm
Post #18 of 18
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test
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