READIN

🦋 Tolkien's voice

How I come to be reading The Hobbit now: Sylvia and I are pretty close to finishing up The Amber Spyglass now; I was casting about for what book to read next and realized that His Dark Materials is reminding me in some key ways of Tolkien's trilogy. That made me think about how much I had loved The Hobbit as a kid -- if memory serves I loved it much more deeply than the trilogy, it seems like I read The Lord of the Rings less whole-heartedly, with an eye mostly toward keeping up with my D&D-enthusiast friends... Anways -- so I asked Sylvia if she would like to read this next, she said she would (unsurprising -- she's really getting into fantasy novels nowadays), and I thought I would look through it beforehand.

And I'm falling in love all over again. I had forgotten how attractively witty and cultured Tolkien's narrative voice is -- it reminds me a lot of Grahame's voice in The Wind in the Willows. I wonder if this is true of the trilogy as well -- I expect it is, and suddenly I'm looking forward to rereading those books, and thinking I might get a lot more out of them than I did back in my childhood.

posted morning of Sunday, March 15th, 2009
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You might also give Jack Vance's Dying Earth a try. (But I wouldn't read it to my daughter.) That's the real source of a lot of D&D backgrounds and it's a very finely written book.

posted evening of March 15th, 2009 by Randolph

The trilogy is 10 times better than the Hobbit. I have read them over and over again at different points in my life. They hold great meaning for me. It is a story of facing great darkness and coming out the other side and the results are not all goodness and light. The trilogy is complex and compelling. The writing is beautiful and humorous. I highly recommend it.

posted afternoon of March 17th, 2009 by painter ofblue

It is a story of facing great darkness and coming out the other side and the results are not all goodness and light

My memory of reading it as a kid is, I wasn't able to identify closely enough with Frodo to see his quest to face the darkness as meaningful. Whereas in the case of the Hobbit, there's a playful spirit, even when Bilbo is fighting for his life you get the sense the narrator is having a good time -- I don't remember this lighthearted wit in the trilogy. But then again, I remember very little from it. I'm looking forward to reading it, trying to go in without preconceptions.

posted afternoon of March 17th, 2009 by Jeremy

I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the humorous touches. Frodo is somber, but there are other hobbits in the story and a couple fun rivalries which add humor.

posted evening of March 18th, 2009 by painter ofblue

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