The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien

I had better be careful what I write here because The Hobbit and its follow up trilogy are some of the best loved books of all time. Tolkien fans are perhaps the worst species of loyalist, being fanatically exacting about all details Middle Earth related and implacable in their rage against the slightest criticism - in their eyes, J. R. R. Tolkien is God. Fortunately I don't have anything negative to write about the book. It is an enjoyable, straightforward fantasy childrens' adventure written in the upbeat style of the grandfatherly epic tradition. The story of a simple, unambitious hobbit named Bilbo Baggins swept up into a daunting quest with eight dwarves and the wizard Gandalf to reclaim their stolen treasure from the dragon Smaug needs little introduction. It is the original 'dungeon crawl' and the founding father of all things fantasy role-playing, inspiring Dungeons and Dragons and shaping the genre as we know it today.

I am not really sure why it took me so long to read Tolkien, most people I know read his works when they were children and grew up under his influence. Perhaps I was more of a C. S. Lewis child, or perhaps I was so steeped in all things fantasy and mythology that I felt I had sufficiently absorbed the books through popular culture. The Hobbit is a difficult book to review without commenting on its huge cultural impact. Beginning as a fireside tale that Tolkien wrote and recited for his children, it grew in ways he could never have imagined. The story itself is by no means outstanding, the adventure is by-the-numbers and pans out more or less how one would expect, but the way it is written remains timelessly engaging to this day. I enjoyed Bilbo's battle of riddles with Gollum and later his infiltration of Smaug's lair, both of which made for some tense reading. Peter Jackson recently got his grubby hands on the rights for the film adaptation and bastardised the tale beyond all imagining, much to the chagrin of Tolkien's family.

Rating: 3/5