The Hobbit (review #2)

Let's embark on a thrilling adventure!!

The Hobbit as written by the fabulous English author J.R.R Tolkien is undoubtedly a flawless masterpiece from the view of TIMES magazine. The first thing came into my mind is the strange name of this book"The Hobbit".So what is a hobbit actually?It sounds like the combination of "rabbit"'and"hole"to me.Gratefully,Professor J.R.R Tolkien solved my puzzles with his clear and detailed description of it. Here’s how Mr. Tolkien introduces his furry progeny in the famous opening lines of The Hobbit: I suppose hobbits need some description nowadays, since they have become rare and shy of the Big People, as they call us. They are (or were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded Dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off. They are inclined to be fat in the stomach; they dress in bright colours (chiefly green and yellow); wear no shoes, because their feet grow naturally leathery soles and thick warm brown hair like the stuff on their heads (which is curtly); have long clever brown fingers, good-natured faces, and laugh deep fruity laughs (especially after dinner, which they have twice a day when they can get it). The chief hobbit of The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, savors life as a complacent, middle-aged gentleman…or gentle-hobbit, maybe. He peaceably rests in his peaceable kingdom until one day when he answers a fateful knock on the door. To Bilbo’s astonishment, two dwarves stand on his stoop, expecting to be let in and fed. Two more dwarves soon appear, then two more, and two by two Bilbo’s comfortable, well-stocked home spills over with 13 hooded dwarves, then a wizard—Gandalf. The next thing Bilbo knows, he’s conscripted into this disreputable company and swept reluctantly off on an uncomfortable, despicable thing called…an adventure. The dwarves seek to return to a distant place called The Lost Mountain. They once lived in a happy, prosperous kingdom beneath the promontory, until a terrible dragon, Smaug, moved in, stole their treasure (and much treasure from other folks), and drove the dwarves into exile. Now the dwarves intend, with the help of the remarkable wizard, to take back their world and treasure from the dragon. This adventure, an innocent preamble to a tougher and darker Lord of the Rings, brings the traveling troupe through many toils and snares. They’re captured by trolls. Giant spiders catch them too—Tolkien as a child in South Africa got a nasty bite from a giant baboon spider, so we can hardly be surprised that antisocial arachnids often appear in his works. The traveling party makes it through dark Mirkwood, with its oppressive forest gloom, and they make it through goblin-haunted caves under fearsome mountains. They dine with glamorous elf-lords and with mysterious bear-men, get chased up trees by giant wolves, get carried away in rescue by soaring eagles. For a reader who can easily switch on the Suspend Disbelief button, The Hobbit makes for a sheer, ecstatic romp. Something also happens in The Hobbit that turns out to be one of those immortal moments in literature, as memorable as the moment Proust takes a taste of that madeleine in Remembrance of Things Past or when Ahab nails a gold coin to the mast in Moby Dick. Deep in the caves beneath the Misty Mountains, Bilbo finds a magic ring. When the little hobbit slips it on, he disappears, allowing him to become just the sort of stellar burglar the dwarves imagined he would be at the outset of their adventure. Bilbo’s discovery also sets in motion events that make Tolkien a god for readers who love fantasy—the plot of The Lord of the Rings trilogy flows from Bilbo’s ring and all that happens after he has found it.