Prompted by news about the upcoming Peter Jackson films that will be released in the next few years, despite all the setbacks and delays that included the attachment and then retirement of Guillero Del Toro as director, and motivated as well as by nostalgia for my childhood years, I decided to reread a classic from my youth, J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit". The fantasy genre frequently offers an escape for those who feel misunderstood and unable to find their own group, but as an escape, it is one that is carries with it an eternal aura of magic. It was so for me.
I have to admit, I was already receptive to this genre. I had been reading books on the space program, and one of my fondest memories involved looking at images of the planets, especially enigmatic Saturn with the other-worldly rings girding it. I also remember books such as Ted Hughes' The Iron Giant, and saw in it a hopeful parable about the friendship of two lonely outsiders. It also helped, of course, that there was a Queen album that was released in those years that I saw pinned to my cousin's wall, back when most music was sold in LP form and album covers were an integral part of the experience.
Those were difficult years for me. I didn't fit into the new school, and had a hard time finding friends. I suppose that was one of the reasons why I took refuge in literature, and spent more than the usual amount of time in the library, reading Beverly Clearly novels as well as those about Dr. Doolittle. It was about that time, when I was in the 6th grade, that a kindly, middle-aged teacher named Mr. Brown (the name was aptly suitable, because he even looked like one of my favorite cartoon characters, Charlie Brown) took note of my interests, and suggested that I might want to try a more substantial book, one called "The Hobbit".
The cover was intriguing, because I really couldn't figure what the subject matter was. There was what seemed to be a placid hill with buildings within it, but I couldn't make out any of the characters, nor any of the other beings that might be found. It was placid, no rocket ships nor astronauts not spectacular vistas of giant planets, only a hill viewed from a distance, a hill that was inhabited by small, human-like creatures.
Well, I took the book home with me, and began to read it. The book certainly was written in a style that seemed more adult, although there were clear elements of whimsy. It was at times an elevated style, and I loved the reference to other exotic languages, to those of, for example, the elves with their beautiful script. There is a lightness of tone in this first novel, introducing us to a thoroughly domesticated character, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins of the Shire.
The life of this thoroughly domesticated character who lived in an abode that seem immensely appealing to me, not knowing then what I knew later on, that it was meant to capture a pre-industrial vision of rural England, a vision of the past that had been lost long ago, although the English countryside continues to exert its magic. I also didn't appreciate then what I know now, that the vision of this island of stability was facing a grave danger of encroachment and invasion that was meant to allude to recent European history, at least as it had pertained to that period of time in the decade of the 30s when it was written by a philologist and professor by the name of Jacob Ronald Ruel Tolkein, i.e. J.R.R. Tolkein.
It offered us what seemed like the prospect of an innocent adventure, with an odd band of characters. It was very appealing, and I was of course taken by the encounter with the dwarves and the wizard Gandalf. Who wouldn't want to be friends with a kindly old wizard who looked like one's grandfather, and who could amaze one with unexpected powers as well as with sage advice? For someone who lived with his own grandfather at the time (as I did), but didn't speak to him, due to the language and cultural gap (my grandfather was a taciturn Mexican man who had little to say to us, and preferred to keep to himself, very different from my voluble grandmother in Guadalajara who always showered me with affection and whose decision not to live with my grandfather I could never understand).
My parents never told me any stories, so I had to look for them myself. I don't know why this is, but maybe, they might have thought that I wouldn't be receptive to their life experiences. They knew that I and my brother and sister were vastly different from the children they had been, at least in terms of our expectations. As my father always grumbled, they would have been happy to receive a slingshot for Christmas, while they felt that we demanded much more expensive entertainment, and weren't receptive to stories about life back in the old country, so close to the United States, so far from God, to paraphrase the dictator Porfirio Diaz.
The story detailed the adventures of a band of friends who formed a cohesive unit despite their differences, and who were called to seek out and reclaim a treasure guarded by a fearsome foe, Smaug the Dragon. It came to me later on that the character of Bilbo Baggins, a batchelor in his fifties who was quite a domesticated character and who yearned for nothing else other than order, comfort and tasty but proper meals at their appropriate set times, was probably an incarnation of the author himself, Mr. Tolkein, who we must state once again, led a placid life, and was a professor at Pembroke College in Oxford in the department of English literature.
I read "The Hobbit" back then in the mid 70s, and then never reread it subsequently until now. While I did move on to the "Lord of the Rings" in junior high school and reread that trilogy from time to time, in addition to returning to what I remember was the posthumous collection of legends and history that was published as the Silmarillion, I somehow associated that first adventure to an earlier and more innocent period in my life, and attributed to it a more whimsical note that was lacking in the drama and sense of foreboding of the trilogy. The Hobbit just didn't seem to offer the same grand sweep, the same retelling of that dreary epoch of the coming of fascism.
After thirty five years I am returning to "The Hobbit" to explore my encounter with this book. Perhaps it can be likened to another treasure hunt like that of the characters, for now I tend to view many of my formative childhood experiences in this way, a life filled with turning points and ephemeral and glittering moments of peace and happiness. Perhaps it will help me also to re-connect with the person I was back then. It is always the sense of returning to a special place, the currency of suffering that renders the past more palatable and immensely appealing.
I thought myself a man by leaving behind children's literature (as such I classified the Hobbit) when I grew up, but now I return to these classics to capture something of their poetry, their sense of an age long ago, when friends were more stalwart, when foes were more easily identified, when we didn't feel asphyxiated by a culture that suffocates us at times with consumerism within a matrix of power and dominance that is modern capitalism. (Just as predatory as the old capitalism, but with better marketing and an aura of inevitability in the age of globalism and the demise of alternative ideological systems.)
Thus, I would like to write about my experiences upon re-reading "The Hobbit".
Chapter One: An Unexpected Party
In this chapter we are introduced to the character of Bilbo Baggins, a respectable hobbit who seems tailored for a life of comfort. He is rich, and he is very bourgeois in his outlook, reflecting the middle-class values of a settled society. He is a miniature version of a burgher of old, and yet, he has a hidden yearning. His family tree has ancestors who were notable because they were unusual, and we may count among them the "Old Took" who left a legendary legacy. He bequeathed him a receptivity to tales of adventure and novelty, even though in other aspects he would seem to be immune to the appeal of novelty.
As stated in this story when his home is invaded by a group of thirteen dwarves who were summoned mysteriously by a mark that Gandalf the wizard had placed on his door, he falls under their enchantment.
Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick. He looked out of the window. The stars were out in a dark sky above the trees. He thought of the jewles of the dwarves shining in dark caverns.
This was a yearning that would overtake me as well, and while I didn't have the benefit of a company of dwarves barging into my home, it would still overtake me as I thought back then of dwarves, of elves, of dragons and of wizards. I too was overcome by an urge to explore, and it was easy to imagine myself as an otherwordly character, an identity that would prove much more authentic than that of a fifth grade student who was mercilessly bullied.
I was also taken with the mention of an episode with a fearsome foe, the "Necromancer". Gandalf is explaining to Thorin, the chief of this party of dwarves, how he had obtained a mysterious map, and he tells him that it was given to him by his father who he encountered as "a prisoner in the dungeons of the Necromancer". It is said that Gandalf barely escaped himself, and I wonder if this foe might have been an incarnation of Sauron, but I suppose that if this had been so, the surprise of having seen Sauron return would not have been as evident in the subsequent trilogy. In a land as expansive as Middle Earth, there is abundant space for many menacing figures, and this is only one who I can imagine has carved for himself a territory where he preys on other creatures who come near.
The thing is that despite the fearsomeness of this episode, Bilbo is moved to prove his worth. He will be the "burgler" for this party, an occupation that could have been more diametrically opposed to his everyday identity as a respectable Hobbit. And somehow, Bilbo agrees, despite his doubts and his resolve to take refuge and wait until the party leaves without him.
Chapter Two: Roast Mutton
In which the party ventures out on their trip, moving out to the lands of the East. They begin to expeience the difficulties of the road, and they lose almost all of their provisions in one episode where a pony ventures out into the river.
The burgler (Bilbo) is sent out to investigate a fire that they perceive in the distance, and he will encounter a group of three "very large persons" who turn out to be fearsome trolls. They speak in an unsavory dialect that can't help but suggest a working-class identity, as evident by their "great heavy faces", "their size and the shape of their legs" and, of course, their "language, which was not drawing-room fashon at all, at all". I can almost cut through the note of disapproval in this description.
Needless to say, Bilbo and all the dwarves are captured by these dwarves, and are about to be cooked if not for the timely intervention of Gandalf who had been scouting up ahead and returns. In a strategem that seems almost too simple to be believe, he sets them to arguing, and they stay up arguing until struck by daylight, after which they become stone-like figures. If trolls are so simple-minded as this, how is it that they have managed to survive up to this point?
The trolls have a treasure trove, and the party will find swords of elvish origin that they will carry with them subsequently. They have been baptized as adventurers, knighted so to speak in an episode that recalls to me the way Don Quijote sought to be knighted as well before venturing out on his quest to right the world. In this case, however, this party is not motivated by such a mission. All they want to do is to wreck vengeance on Smaug and capture their share of treasure. I suspect it is more of the latter rather than the former that motivates them, but it fills up the mind to think of what treasure the dragon might have. If they were able to obtain pots of gold and beautiful, ancient elvish swords from three ordinary and rather stupid trolls, what will they obtain from Smaug?
Chapter Three: A Short Rest
The party proceeds on their journey,and when told of how much further the Misty Mountains lie, Bilbo feels a moment of regret. "He was thinking once again of his comfortable chair before the fire in his favourite sitting-room in his hobbit-hole, and of the kettle singing. Not for the last time!"
I feel the pang of regret that Bilbo feels. Who doesn't feel this yearning for comfort, especially as circumstances become more difficult? However, they will find a comforting community. They are on the road to Rivendell, where Gandalf has friends, and they will encounter elves.
These elves seem otherwordly, but also, fey in a way that wasn't evident in the subsequent trilogy. In the films by Peter Jackson, the elves are thin and haughty, as if they found it disreputable to have to deal with other races. They inspired awe but they weren't particularly warm. In this first novel, however, they are presented to us as creatures who sing in the forest, who utter silly rhymes and who, creepily, seem to know the names and the history of the members of the parties. And yet, they inspire comfort in Bilbo, even if it is said that the dwarves think the elves "foolish".
I try to imagine what I would have thought at this presentation of the elves. It was certainly a mysterious way to encounter them as voices that ring around them and emanate from the hidden shelter of the trees. Elrond, the leader, is a majestic figure, however, and is presented as wise and stately, having seen much of the history of the various communities of Middle Earth.
Chapter Four: Over Hill and Under Hill
As the expedition continues venturing up a mountain they encounter a frightening thunderstorm, "more than a thunderstorm, a thunder battle." It is described in memorable terms as a personified battle between stone-giants, who "were out, and were hurling rocks at one another for a game, and catching them, and tossing them down into the darkness where they smashed among the trees far below, or splintered into little bits with a bang." This was such a wonderful visual description that I had to include it. It would certainly have captured my attention back then, when I was taken by tales of monsters in expanded scales of reference.
The peril lies in the fact that the weather forces them to take shelter, and they unknowingly do so in a cave that turns out to be a passageway for goblins who come out and take them prisoner during the night. This is revealed in an almost dreamlike way, as Bilbo becomes aware of a crack opening up in the back and the animals being led in before the dwarves are captured. Luckily, Bilbo is able to scream a warning and Gandalf escapes.
These goblins are apparently related to the orcs we came to know in the trilogy, and although they are fearsome, they certainly seem less so. For one thing, they seem to be not much larger than the dwarves who are able to challenge them with their elven swords before succombing. For another thing, they gloat and they sing, and this element of singing somehow renders them less intimidating, despite the fact that this singing amount to taunts.
Clap! Snap! the black crack!
Grip, grab! Pinch, nab!
And down down to Goblin-town
You go, my lad!
They taunt their prisoners by referring to them as "my lad"? They use homely terms such as "Goblin-town" that seem to suggest a certain level of domesticity? It was my impression that if they were orcs, their expressive powers would be much more rudimentary, if they did make much noise in any case. It would have been more terrifying if they were silent, or relied on a gutteral, animal-like language such as roars, war cries, jeers and grunts. And the narration contributes to this metaphorical defanging of the Goblins who, while still fearsome, are also not so fearsome, because they can't help but recall children to my mind. How else to react to this description of the goblins as they investigate the baggage and packages of the dwarves, which were "being rummaged by goblins, and smelt by goblins, and fingered by goblins, and quarreled over by goblins". This is a children's tale with adult touches.
In a typical bit of heroism, Gandalf ventures back, having escaped capture, and he rescues the dwarves who were about to be attacked by the Great Goblin and his chief officers. It is a stirring rescue that will anticipate the episode in the Mines of Moria that was to come in the Lord of the Rings, and it perhaps constitute a recurring theme in these works where characters visit underground realms. Perhaps deep and dark spaces hold deep and dark secrets and thus allude to the psyche and the secrets that are repressed, as seems to have happened with one memorable character who appears in the next chapter.
Chapter Five: Riddles in the Dark
Here we are finally introduced to the character of Gollum, one who is every bit as tortured as we imagined him but who also seems more fearsome than we remember him. He is still able to evoke some pity on the part of the reader for he is able to recall moments in his deep past when he had a family and when he used to live with his grandmother, recalling thus a moment when he was loved. And now he is isolated (except for his ring), swallowing deeply and capable of cruelty and much deviousness. He is a poisoned character, and Bilbo encounters him because Bilbo is unable to escape when Gandalf shows the way, and instead ventures deep into the center of the mountain.
Gollum lives deep inside the mountain, in a little island in the midst of an underground lake, in total darkness, preying on stray orcs who venture too deep, and ocassionaly venturing out of the tunnels to overpower one or the other in order to supplement his diet of fish. He challenges Bilbo to a duel of riddles, and they are able to trade answers for some time before Bilbo, in a moment of ultimate frustration over having exhausted his supply, asks Gollum to guess what he has in his pocket. Of course it is the ring, that ring that would assume so much symbolic power at a later moment, and as Gollum discovers that his precious possession is missing, he hurries back to murder Bilbo and reclaim his prize. He doesn't, as we well know, and Bilbo escapes, proving himself to be a very resourceful character who has evolved dramatically from his presentation in the beginning of the novel.
Chapter Six: Out of the Frying-Pan, Into the Fire
Amazingly, Bilbo escapes the mountain and after running for some time and despairing about finding his companions, finds them once again. He now has a talisman of power, the ring, and this will prove to be useful as we well know.
However, the entire party is fleeing, fearing that the goblins will overtake them with the coming of the night, and thus they fall into a trap. They find a clearing surrounded by trees, and they take shelter when they discover that the wolves (the fearsome Wargs) are arriving, forcing them to climb up the trees. I can easily imagine the terror of this moment, and the desperation as they realize that the Wargs are in league with the goblins, and will certainly take advantage of this situation. However, the band is rescued unexpectedly by the eagles, who swarm in and rescue them just as the fires are about to overcome them. They are delivered to a far-away outpost in safety, much closer to their goal, but the band also has a moment of despair because Gandalf claims that he needs to leave them as he pursues other urgent matters. Much the same form of abandonment took place in "The Lord of the Rings", but I suspect it will be remedied by a re-encounter soon.
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