Reading the Hobbit
Aug 2nd, 2009 by elle
For the past few days, my fiancé has been reading me the Hobbit, and book he read long ago, but one that I am only now getting to.
I have to say, I am loving it! It’s a wonderful read, so much better than I had expected. First of all, I’ve had the ‘Unexpected Party’ chapter read to me a couple of times. First off, when I was five or so, my mother started reading it to me, but I don’t think we got very far. Then over the past nigh-on decade I have been with my fiancé we have started this book probably twice before. I love this chapter, I love the cloaks all hung on the pegs in the front hall. I’ve always found that such an easy image to conjure in my mind, and has stuck with me for a long time.
Now, I didn’t really expect all that much from Bilbo to begin with… I’m more familiar with Lord of the Rings – though, ashamedly, I’ve not read that either, which is why it is the book my fiancé and I are going to start on once we finish The Hobbit – in which Bilbo is quite old and seems quite frail. Not in The Hobbit though, in fact, my esteem of Hobbits has gone up exponentially from reading this. Bilbo is quick witted, clever, brave, stoic, loyal, honourable, and all round more awesome than I had ever expected.
The scene where Bilbo fights off all the spiders of Mirkwood really set it in my mind that this is one little Hobbit not to trifle with. He so bravely attacked those disgusting creatures, and didn’t think anything of it, himself. Earlier in the book too, when he got out of the Goblin infested caves, he knew he would go back for the Dwarves, but they would have left him back in there if not for Gandalf insisting they didn’t. Bilbo is more loyal to them, and it takes him saving their lives three times over before they truly start to appreciate the awesomeness that is Bilbo Baggins, of Bag-End, Underhill.
Reading this book has made my appreciation of Hobbits in general take off, and I thought they were kick ass in the first place! I’m even more happy to be playing one in LOTRO than I was before! I’m also loving all the traits I personally share with Hobbits, so that makes me really happy too.
Today I am going to link to a pattern of a knitted spider, so the awesome Hobbit in us all can kick it’s knitted ass… 