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 Post subject: Re: General Impressions
PostPosted: September 25th, 2016, 3:08 am 
Dunedain Ranger of Arnor
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The Hobbit was the first Tolkien book I ever read when it was recommended by my neighbor and he loaned me his paperback. I quickly read it through and started into Fellowship of the Ring soon after. But I have only read The Hobbit that one time, whereas I've read Lord of the Rings a few dozen times over the years. My general impression is The Hobbit is geared toward an audience who prefer a lighter read, and it is a great prequel to the Lord of the Rings. Will I read it again, maybe, but I have never felt driven to re-read it after all these years.

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 Post subject: Re: General Impressions
PostPosted: January 2nd, 2017, 8:01 am 
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Yeah, I feel the same about it. I have read it twice, first the finnish version, then the original and now I'm trying to read the swedish version and oh gosh it's hard, but thats just for learning purposes.
It's kind of children's book, because it's a lot lighter than Lotr. It's not a bad thing, but the Hobbit resembles a fairytale somehow. Like I could imagine someone reading it to me or me reading it to a child. Perhaps it the beginning that gives that feeling "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit". It's almost like "Once upon a time, in a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit". I'm not sure what I'm trying to say anymore, but I think the Hobbit isn't as thought-provoking as Silmarillion for exemple. It's not a bad thing as I said because it's all preferencies, but I think I like the darker Arda tales more, because they make me think more and contemplate anything from general greediness of people to how easily beautiful things or people (like Lúthien) can cause quarrel and trouble without even knowing it. But now I'm just getting lost on the side tracks, so..

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 Post subject: Re: General Impressions
PostPosted: March 31st, 2017, 7:42 am 
Dunedain Ranger of Arnor
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Glad you and your husband enjoy the Hobbit. But I have to ask... you being paid to advertise?

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 Post subject: Re: General Impressions
PostPosted: March 31st, 2017, 8:53 am 
Gondorian
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Durían wrote:
Glad you and your husband enjoy the Hobbit. But I have to ask... you being paid to advertise?

(snort, guffaw, wheeze)

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 Post subject: Re: General Impressions
PostPosted: March 31st, 2017, 2:05 pm 
Istari
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The Hobbit is the book by JRRT that I have the most versions of: four.

1984 Unwin Paperbacks reprint (bought in a splurge which included LoTR, Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and Book of Lost Tales 1 and 2)
2001 HarperCollins hardcover (with a map and some other, frivolous extras, while the total quality leaves much to be desired for a hardcover - we have trade paperbacks that are of immensely better quality in Germany)
1992 hardcover three-volume comic book German translation
2012 German expanded translation of Douglas A. Anderson's 2002 revised and expanded edition of the "Annotated Hobbit".

The manuscript that Allen and Unwin were given to read was incomplete. My guess is that the battle parts were what was added, and they got closer to what was later to become LoTR than the rest of the book. Commented on as somewhat unusual for a children's book more than once. Which may be the reason that the "New Hobbit" ended up so much closer to the Silmarillion (though still somewhat closer to The Hobbit than the published Silmarillion was - Fëanor and his ilk were galaxies away from the Elves of The Hobbit!

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 Post subject: Re: General Impressions
PostPosted: March 31st, 2017, 2:20 pm 
Gondorian
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Gandolorin wrote:
The manuscript that Allen and Unwin were given to read was incomplete.


Not necessarily... according to JD Rateliff, The History of The Hobbit, Allen and Unwin received a typescript of the full story, and Rayner Unwin's comments seem to include the end battle anyway.

By the way, didn't we just chat about this... or was it someone else :)

I recall chatting about the Rivendell Elves in The Hobbit versus the light teasing of the Etyangoldi in The Lord of the Rings... with someone... fairly recently.


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 Post subject: Re: General Impressions
PostPosted: March 31st, 2017, 2:35 pm 
Gondorian
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Yes... [just checked] our chat occurred "In Mirkwood"

The thread, not the forest :rain:

Not sure why the rain here... but I never used it before.


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 Post subject: Re: General Impressions
PostPosted: March 31st, 2017, 2:39 pm 
Istari
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Elthir wrote:
Gandolorin wrote:
... By the way, didn't we just chat about this... or was it someone else :)

I recall chatting about the Rivendell Elves in The Hobbit versus the light teasing of the Etyangoldi in The Lord of the Rings... with someone... fairly recently.

We've never chatted on A-U, nor on CoE; I did PM you once here just after I had joined .

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 Post subject: Re: General Impressions
PostPosted: March 31st, 2017, 4:21 pm 
Gondorian
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Okay but I meant chat as in discuss... we recently spoke [well, posted back and forth actually] about JDR's opinion with respect to what Tolkien's publishers were given at first [the tale of The Hobbit], within a discussion about Elves in The Hobbit versus Elves in other sources...

... over in the In Mirkwood thread.


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 Post subject: Re: General Impressions
PostPosted: April 1st, 2017, 6:45 pm 
Istari
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Ah, OK, I took chat in the narrow meaning like in the chatbar or chatroom on CoE. Discussions per posts there have shrunken to just a few threads, sometimes only the Fans over Forty thread. And there, with participants spread out over half or more of the world, posts usually are anything but live chats. Though once, Evil~Shieldmaiden set up an actual chatroom with the third participant being Durían - ah, new he's back to Hanasian. He's 9 hours ahead of CET in Brisbane, Queensland, while E~S is nine hours behind on Vancouver Island, Pacific time. So that covered 18 of the 24 hours spanning our globe.

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 Post subject: Re: General Impressions
PostPosted: April 1st, 2017, 7:33 pm 
Dunedain Ranger of Arnor
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Gandolorin wrote:
Ah, OK, I took chat in the narrow meaning like in the chatbar or chatroom on CoE. Discussions per posts there have shrunken to just a few threads, sometimes only the Fans over Forty thread. And there, with participants spread out over half or more of the world, posts usually are anything but live chats. Though once, Evil~Shieldmaiden set up an actual chatroom with the third participant being Durían - ah, new he's back to Hanasian. He's 9 hours ahead of CET in Brisbane, Queensland, while E~S is nine hours behind on Vancouver Island, Pacific time. So that covered 18 of the 24 hours spanning our globe.


Yes, that was a good chat, even if I was at work the next day.
I should go over there and pay a visit and see if Arveleg have any messages.
A funny thing about my 'formal warning" i got there. It was delivered in a forum thread, not by PM. So if I had not read the thread, I guess it isn't in effect? Anyway, I digress.
Where did the 'lovebird' go? Off selling cupid I guess. They have two posts here... one they have a girlfriend, and th eother they have a husband. Now I'm all for alternative lifestyles... but I hate spammers.

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 Post subject: Re: General Impressions
PostPosted: April 2nd, 2017, 3:49 pm 
Gondorian
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Gandolorin wrote:
Though once, Evil~Shieldmaiden set up an actual chatroom with the third participant being Durían - ah, new he's back to Hanasian. He's 9 hours ahead of CET in Brisbane, Queensland, while E~S is nine hours behind on Vancouver Island, Pacific time. So that covered 18 of the 24 hours spanning our globe.


It's good to know where people live. Live RPing must be a challenge. I've written with people in England and THAT was a challenge to find the right time for everyone. That's probably why I'm usually up at 3:00 am. Looks like Evil.Shieldmaiden and I are in the same time-zone at least. :D

My general impression of The Hobbit is that there is more there than what is on the surface. Yes, it's a children's book basically, but really, Bilbo has his challenges in which he is forced to grow. I think that theme was totally missed in the movies. I wish we were perceived as a more intelligent movie-going audience...

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 Post subject: Re: General Impressions
PostPosted: April 2nd, 2017, 4:26 pm 
Istari
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Well, after having celebrated JRRT's 125th birthday in January, The Hobbit's 80th anniversary is also coming up this year. Continuously in print the entire time (except perhaps when a large stock of the books was destroyed by Luftwaffe bombing during WW II). I guess that's more than enough time to certify it as a classic. And there is perhaps only one purported "children's book" which is in its class (Dr. Seuss books and such being almost solely children's books bought by parents for their tykes), to which The Hobbit was compared by early critics (though C.S. Lewis as a fellow Inkling might almost be disqualified): Lewis Carrol's Alice books.

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 Post subject: Re: General Impressions
PostPosted: April 2nd, 2017, 10:54 pm 
Gondorian
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Gandolorin, what an amazing journey Tolkien's works have had, eh? I'm grateful that I was introduced to his writings when I was - long before the movie adaptations were released.


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 Post subject: Re: General Impressions
PostPosted: April 3rd, 2017, 3:12 am 
Rider of Rohan
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I read the Hobbit in 1999 when I was eleven. I had it read to me by my mother when I was little, so when I read it in really enjoyed it. The one thing that really stuck with me was the fascination f the troll's treasure where they found the swords. I wanted to know who had them before the trolls got them, and my imagination ran away with that. When I turned 12, my parents got me a box set of the four books, and I read Lord of the Rings in about a month. I reread the four books again the next year before the first movie came out in 2001. I liked the Lord of the Rings movies, but I was glad to have an imprint in my mind what everyone and everything looked like from my imagination before seeing them presented on screen. I did crush on Aragorn/Viggo for a while there. The Hobbit movies I did not like as much. Maybe it was because I was older and saw the flaws in it? I don't know.

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 Post subject: Re: General Impressions
PostPosted: April 3rd, 2017, 7:34 am 
Gondorian
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Deumeawyn, I still read the trilogy, sometimes twice a year. In between, I read other books, of course, but I always return to those stories. As with you, they all captured my imagination and the history of certain objects have always been intriguing.

The movie adaptations were fair enough, but there were so many things that were either convoluted or missing, entirely. Faramir wasn't portrayed as he was in the books, Sauruman was treated as a simple plot device, and so forth.

The Hobbit movies were..........well, they were movies. By the time "The Hobbit" movies were in the works, it was all about the franchise, rather than telling the story, and it was drawn out into too many movies.

Eh...........it is what it is. So glad you're having a good time on this site! :-)


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