“It’s a dangerous business Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” – Bilbo Baggins
Bilbo speaks from experience; nominated by the wizard Gandalf to make up the fourteenth member of a party of adventuring dwarves, the befuddled Hobbit finds himself caught up in an unexpected quest. Determined to redeem their lost homeland the dwarves hire the reluctant Bilbo as their thief to help them defeat the dragon Smaug and steal back their riches.
Hobbits, by nature, do not like adventures. They prefer their nice warm Hobbit-holes, and good food. But Bilbo is no ordinary Hobbit and before he knows it he finds himself far from home without even a handkerchief in his pocket to make the journey comfortable. It is, in fact, very uncomfortable and dangerous. The band encounters Trolls, Goblins, Wargs, giant spiders, and Wood Elves, even before they reach the great dragon.
‘The Hobbit’ is a Bildungsroman – a coming-of-age story. Growing in courage and craftiness, Bilbo’s sense of identity blossoms over the course of the book until there is a nearly complete reversal of roles within their party, and in the end he proves that Gandalf made the right choice in choosing him. This makes the book different from the traditional quest novel, despite being presented in the same style, almost reminiscent of ‘Beowulf’.
Considered one of the few works of children’s literature to enter mainstream culture, although Tolkien wrote it for his own children he thought it only a children’s book in that it appealed to the child within us all. That being said, after writing the sequel, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, he attempted to rewrite ‘The Hobbit’ in the same, more mature style, and was advised not to or else it would lose something in the translation.
This was also a fear expressed in bringing this beloved book to the screen, but ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ was met with mostly positive, though somewhat mixed, reviews. Covering approximately the first third of the book, the first movie gives us a hint of what we can expect from further installments.
Early concerns were expressed when it was announced that three movies would be made to cover the contents of one book. Jackson and company cleverly dealt with this issue by drawing from the wealth of other material Tolkien wrote on Middle-earth in order to expand the story. Threads of plot left unexplored in ‘The Hobbit’ are further developed, not only giving depth to a movie that might have been able to stand on it’s own, but also deftly tying it to it’s sequel. Fleshing out the plot of the Necromancer – something minutely referred to throughout ‘The Hobbit’ – and connecting them to what will occur sixty years hence in the events recorded in ‘The Lord of the Rings’, provides a more cohesive story, and not just two separate trilogies, but a series.
The second installment of ‘The Hobbit’ will be ‘The Desolation of Smaug’ and the two trailers released thus far to give us an idea of what we’re in for. Much is as expected – the dwarves in their barrels, hurtling toward the floating remains of Laketown. Other are slightly surprising – the early appearance of the dwarf Dain. A few characters have been added to the script (a female elf to break up Tolkien’s testosterone-extravaganza, and a boy, son of Bard of Laketown), and one familiar face has returned (Legolas).
The most important question though, is how much of ‘The Hobbit’ will the second script cover? Scenes of Bilbo encountering Smaug the dragon place us far into the novel and leave one wondering, what will they leave for the final installment? With a large battle looming in the final act, it’s possible that ‘The Desolation of Smaug’ will see both the dragon’s rise and fall.
