A Charming Introduction to Middle-Earth. Review on Hobbit, The - J.R.R. Tolkien

The Hobbit is sometimes described as a prelude to Lord of the Rings, and it does indeed introduce characters and places that later appear in that epic. But it can enjoyed as a stand-alone, and was in fact written almost 20 years earlier.

A bare-bones description of the plot makes it sound almost ridiculously simple: Several decades before the events in Lord of the Rings, Bilbo Baggins (the titular hobbit) is drafted by the wizard Gandalf to accompany a band of dwarves on a treasure hunt. Unfortunately, there is one very large obstacle in the adventurers' way: a dragon called Smaug who has helped himself to both the dwarves' former home and their treasure. The dwarves, especially their leader, Thorin Oakenshield, mean to get both back if they can. They need Bilbo to act as spy and a thief for them.

Bilbo at first seems laughably unsuited to his role as ''burglar'': he nearly gets everybody killed at least once, and he plainly is not used to roughing it. But gradually, he adjusts and grows into his role, and soon proves quite useful to the group. While he never loses his love of comfort, he develops a considerable cunning and resourcefulness. In one chapter, he manages to smuggle the dwarves out of a dungeon by putting them in barrels and floating them down a river. As floating barrels full of goods up and down the river was a common practice in that part of Middle-Earth, the trick worked nicely.

As the The Hobbit tells of a journey, it serves as a nice guide to parts of Middle-Earth. It's here that readers are first introduced to the Shire and to Rivendell. Mirkwood, the birthplace of Lord of the Ring's Legolas, is described here. Several characters are introduced here as well, including Bilbo himself, Gandalf, Gollum, and Elrond.

Tolkien's treatment of some of the characters and creatures is somewhat different from that of Lord of the Rings. The Rivendell Elves in The Hobbit are merrier and at times more childish than those in Lord of the Rings; it's doubtful that Gandalf would have had to chide them as he does here: ''Hush, hush! Good People! and good night! Valleys have ears, and some elves have over merry tongues.'' The giant spiders in Hobbit can talk, and are plainly easy to trick; these traits make them far less menacing than Shelob in Lord of the Rings. The Ring that causes so much trouble in Lord of the Rings is simply a handy piece of magic jewelry that can turn its owner invisible-- and Bilbo makes very good use of it during his stint as a burglar.

The tone in Hobbit is also different. Tolkien supposedly wrote it as a bedtime story for his children. It therefore feels more like a long fairy tale, rather than an epic. It has fairy tale elements like trolls and talking spiders and eagles. Many of the monsters have convenient weaknesses, like dimwittedness. The heroes generally find help when they need it, and are always able to escape from their captors. Tolkien also adopts a more conversational and less formal tone in his writing. Sometimes he sounds a bit too chatty, as when after describing a quarrel between three trolls, he comments, ''Yes, I am afraid trolls do behave like that, even those with only head each.'' Cue the giggling from his bedtime audience. It isn't until the later chapters that a reader will begin to see traces of Tolkien's later epic tone, most notably when he describes a battle.

Some aspects of Hobbit may strike modern readers as politically incorrect. There are no female characters whatsoever, and some of villains, most notably the trolls, talk like lower-class Englishmen. Tolkien even names his trolls Tom, Bert, and William Huggins. It therefore bears remembering that The Hobbit was written in 1937. But readers who can get past that will nonetheless find the The Hobbit most enjoyable.