Whatever happened to Hobbit?

He might not be hanging around here much, but the last time I pinged him via his own site with a direct question, he showed up....

-Chap

 

Like all but the Elves, he is subject to the ravages of time.

Bilbo Bagens left with the Elves and may have gone to another place yet WHY?

Bob Wilson

 

Yeah, the sound is bad in that vid. All versions of it are also. In fact, everything about that music video, and I'm using that term loosely, is bad. But in a so bad it is good sort of way.

 

I was kind of hoping it would turn out to be the one in the book, "carefully, carefully, with the plates" and all that.

-Chap

Ok, that was too easy:

 

Hmmmmm.....

I've always been a reader, but thus far two books have eluded several attempts by me to grind my way through them.

The first is the Hobbit.
IIRC, I tried to read it when I was about 10 and after the first chapter I threw it away thinking "That's the dumbest damn book I've ever read!"
In high school it was required reading, because I had a goofy hippie for an English Lit teacher.
I think I read a plot summary and some Cliff notes and aced the test.
Several times, I've picked up this work to see if I could glean some life lesson or insight and despite the fact that I have nine sea service ribbons, I've never actually been bored enough to get through it.
I already accept the fact that since I'm a male cat person and not a dog person, not "getting" the Hobbit is yet another indicator of a defect in my personality.

Then?
There's Pride and Prejudice.

I tried.
I REALLY TRIED!!
If anyone out there is geographically advantaged enough to live in a part of the world where they have a Cracker Barrel restaurant, then you know how this works.
Buy a book on CD (back then, it was mostly cassette....)
Listen to the book while driving.....say....on a road trip.
Return the book to another Cracker Barrel.
Get a refund for the purchase price, minus a small weekly rental fee, usually around $3.

So......in those dark days before MP3, podcasts.....XM radio....or Overdrive lending libraries I had to drive a lot and I chewed my way through Cracker Barrel's library until I got to Jane's famous tome, in the middle of the night......in the middle of West Va.
I'm thinking that it was probably a combination of the smarmy oxford accent of the book's performer, 12 cups of coffee, and 22 sleepless hours that prompted me to break West Virginia's littering laws and deprive myself of the refund and just continue my drive in a glum brooding silence........probably about 10 minutes after the opening “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife"
Yes....I looked that up.

Wuthering Heights had a similar effect on me, although I did like sister Charlotte's Jane Eyre.....and I WELL learned my lesson about littering and thus got the refund on Emily's book!
Perhaps my military service and Catholic elementary school experiences made me more sympathetic to Ms Eyre....
I have a road trip coming up soon, and perhaps I'll give Jane Austen another tumble. (I'll blow the horn @bwilson4web if it's not too late when I pass through Huntsville!)

But, the Hobbit?
Nope!
I also tried the Harry Potter series without being able to finish the first book.....so it's probably a genre thing instead of a defect in my character.

 

It reminded me of Biblical verses that included a lot of names and begottens. Then I realized it was showing how an oral tradition of story telling would first be written. The only thing worse, James Fenimore Cooper who Mark Twain once wrote a much better, scathing review:
Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses

Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in "Deerslayer," and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record.

There are nineteen rules governing literary art in domain of romantic fiction -- some say twenty-two. In "Deerslayer," Cooper violated eighteen of them. These eighteen require:​

[WARNING] do not try to sip a beverage while reading Twain's review.

Bob Wilson

 

loved the hobbit and lord of the rings. the movies were a poor translation, but probably better suited for the non reading generation.

 

I've worn out two copies of The Hobbit and one of LOTR. I finally got a digital copy of the Hobbit. Agree with @bisco that the movies were not as great, although I enjoyed them except when my wife would say, "Would you shut up about the parts they skipped?"

 

You could try reading through the graphic novel version of it.

 

We call those comic books where I'm from.....
Thanks anyway.
It's not a problem of being able to read the book, but rather the manufacturer's warranty on the human animal is something like 630,000 hours, and while I'm not super picky about how I spend them (after all......I now have 4700 PC posts!)


......I can just think of better things to do.

EDIT:
Speaking of which, I think on my next road trip I'll give P&P another shot.......and report back....but I WILL have a backup.
Graphic novels have their place.....but not in my car while I'm actually trying to drive.....

 

Uh, would the complete, unabridged version come with a fork lift?

Bob Wilson

 

Mark Twain @9. It is possible, but difficult, to 'go wrong' with this author. I could think of some current writers who follow the style, but they just seem consciously trying to do it. They can never bring joy like the original. Excerpt from the link:

"Another stage-property that he pulled out of his box pretty frequently was the broken twig. He prized his broken twig above all the rest of his effects, and worked it the hardest. It is a restful chapter in any book of his when somebody doesn't step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites for two hundred yards around. Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig."

 

I was offered The Hobbit at around age ten, and had a grand time with it. The "Chip the Glasses" song really tickled me at the time. I think I was used to books that were either blatantly kid-focused and goofy, or "serious", and it was a revelation to me that something as "serious" in appearance as Hobbit was allowed to be that goofy at the same time.

As soon as I finished that, grinning from ear to ear, my mom plunked a LOTR boxed set in front of me, which I eagerly tore into and ... went ... ehrrmmm. And never really picked up anything like it again for a long time.

I did not give it another try until about a dozen years ago, and that was because I had a young acquaintance about the same age I had been back then, who was having exactly the same experience. Loved Hobbit, tore into LOTR, and ... went ... ehrrmmm.

As for me, I enjoyed it the second time around. I was trying to figure out what misfired the first time, and I don't think the language gets harder (in fact, I've looked at one of those reading-level score thingies that actually rates LOTR a little bit lower than Hobbit). But I think the social dynamics got more intricate, and that just wasn't in my wheelhouse as a ten year old geek tyke.

Pride and Prejudice I never made a run at until adulthood, and it won me over on the first try. Maybe there is one advantage to the printed book over the audiobook: if I get tired of the smarmy accent in my head, I can change it. On the other hand, we're still not quite to the autonomous car where we can have our noses in a book. Maybe not too much longer?

Wuthering Heights I also read first as an adult (only a few years ago), and I can certainly understand not feeling affection for it. That type of story where seriously bad s--t is happening, and nothing softens it for the reader. I think that counts as success for the writer (she didn't want you feeling ok with all that!), but no picnic for the reader. I ended up thinking the moment that makes the book is the very end, nothing but the faintest tentative hint of hope, but given the construction of everything up to that point, feels like utter miracle. (And no use trying to just skip to the end for that, 'cause the ugliness is needed before it can work.)

Persepolis was a graphic novel I was perfectly happy to have spent a couple of my 630,000 hours on.

-Chap

 

It hits all the relevant points like the animated movie did. That was was two hours with commercials, which is why I refused to see the latest movie after learning it would be three films.

 

the three movies were pretty good, but still not as good as my imagination.

 

LOL I thought we were talking about Hobbit that use to hang around here. He had an 04 Prius and was always trying to get more mpg's out of it.