# The Hobbit (~675 words)



## Smith (Jan 17, 2018)

Yes, I know this was my entry for this month's NFLM challenge. I'm trying to think of a simple way to explain this... basically, I'm throwing in the towel. I don't think I'll win, and if I do somehow win then I'll certainly feel it is undeserved. The last-third wasn't as focused as it should have been. I could've done a lot better. I believe I fixed that in this draft and I would appreciate any constructive critique that can be offered.

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I remember reading The Hobbit for the first time in elementary school. It was a strange but charming, soft-cover copy that I haven’t been able to find since; about the size of a college history book and interspersed with beautifully drawn pictures.


And I hated it.


However, that was what I’d chosen for my quarterly book assignment. I can’t remember the requirements now other than having to read for a minimum of 30 minutes a day, five days a week, and writing something about it. I recall being bored to tears and utterly confused for most of the story.


Tolkien’s genius was lost on me until a year ago when I finally bought the full set from Amazon. I loved The Lord of the Rings movies by Peter Jackson long before I was supposedly deemed old enough to watch them (what can I say, I’m also a naughty boy) and figured it was about time I read the books that they originated from. Yet I couldn’t do that without first reading The Hobbit again.


Often has it been said that The Hobbit was intended for children and, while that may be so, I’m inclined to believe there was some important information lost in translation. It was intended to be read _to_ children, not _by_ them.


The sing-song cadence, the internal rhyme, the alliteration and assonance of the dwarven names, all begs for it to be read aloud and brought to life as a bedtime story. Those devices are as deliberate as the songs and poems Tolkien sprinkles throughout the work. The unexplained, mysterious magic, and embedding the tale in the context of a vastly rich, fictional universe with its own history, is also not by accident. It dreamily summons the same awe and wonder in the child as the real world does.


More than that, The Hobbit is a call to adventure. I would know, because it inspired me to travel to Toronto alone for a weekend and attend a free speech event I’d been invited to. Leave the comfort of your hobbit-hole, go forth and slay a dragon. Face what you fear most, because that’s where the treasure is, and if you don’t confront the dragon on your own terms it will eventually awaken from its slumber and come to destroy you. Either pick the hill you want to die on, or it will be chosen for you.


There’s no naive promise of success here. As Gandalf appropriately warns Bilbo, “You’ll have a tale or two to tell when you come back… And if you do, you will not be the same.” Rather, the promise is simply that if you refuse to enter the forest at the point which looks darkest to you - like King Arthur and the knights of the round table - you will never find the Holy Grail. You won’t realize your potential, much less whatever it is that you seek; you won’t reclaim the treasure for the dwarves, elves, or men folk, and you won’t free Laketown from the evil that watches from the Lonely Mountain.


Altogether, this is what makes The Hobbit the masterful classic that it is. It’s the ultimate expression of a set of archetypal themes that are an integral, undeniable part of our lives. In the same way that Bilbo passes the torch to Frodo, Tolkien says to venture into the world and slay your dragons. Live life, mature, transform and transcend. Change the world for the better.


Then return, and pass on your experience and fortune to your children until they are ready to go there and back again.


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## Garvan (Jan 17, 2018)

I am not sure what to say. As a short little commentary on your thoughts, feelings, and history with The Hobbit, I think that this is fine just the way it is. However, if you want it to be more, then I think that you need to go into deeper into your ideas, pull paragraphs that show what you mean about the language, see what others have thought about The Hobbit (aka see who agrees with you), talk more about what the book and the LOTR series means to you... 

But if the idea is not to have an essay on the subject but rather just a putting down of your thoughts this does well enough for that.


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## Smith (Jan 17, 2018)

Garvan said:


> I am not sure what to say. As a short little commentary on your thoughts, feelings, and history with The Hobbit, I think that this is fine just the way it is. However, if you want it to be more, then I think that you need to go into deeper into your ideas, pull paragraphs that show what you mean about the language, see what others have thought about The Hobbit (aka see who agrees with you), talk more about what the book and the LOTR series means to you...
> 
> But if the idea is not to have an essay on the subject but rather just a putting down of your thoughts this does well enough for that.



Thank-you Garvan, I agree. I would like to go more in-depth but this was originally an entry for the NFLM challenge here on WF, and the max word-count allowed is 700. So yeah, it's essentially a brief reflection and my thoughts.

P.S. I probably could have removed most of the third paragraph ("However, that was...") and used that extra word count to include a couple of brief examples. I will keep that in mind.


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## Garvan (Jan 17, 2018)

Ah! Well considering the word the word length then you did very well. You gave yourself room to explore your ideas without feeling like you are rushing through them. 

Hmm... you could, but at the same time it does give an insight into the history you have with it, and it does give context to the changes you saw when you read it as an older person. What I mean is that it is not an utterly useless paragraph. If you had something really more important to put in, then yes, they would be a low ranked section (on the importance level) and the first to go but not utterly without its place in the piece. 

Things like reviews have a balance between, telling the reader about your reading experience and informing them about the book and telling an engaging story. This is hard to find and one that (for me still) requires a lot of editing and shifting of things around until all seems well.


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## Smith (Jan 18, 2018)

Garvan said:


> Ah! Well considering the word the word length then you did very well. You gave yourself room to explore your ideas without feeling like you are rushing through them.
> 
> Hmm... you could, but at the same time it does give an insight into the history you have with it, and it does give context to the changes you saw when you read it as an older person. What I mean is that it is not an utterly useless paragraph. If you had something really more important to put in, then yes, they would be a low ranked section (on the importance level) and the first to go but not utterly without its place in the piece.
> 
> Things like reviews have a balance between, telling the reader about your reading experience and informing them about the book and telling an engaging story. This is hard to find and one that (for me still) requires a lot of editing and shifting of things around until all seems well.



You're right about how difficult it can be to strike that balance, Garvan.

The problem with the first draft (which I regret submitting now but oh well lol) was actually having too much going on in the latter half. It probably wouldn't have been a big deal if I'd had 1000 words to fully flesh out what I was getting at, but the reality is that I didn't have 300 extra words to work with, and so some of it was distracting, out of place, and incomplete.

Here, in this draft, I really honed in on the dragon theme, and facing your fears. Entering the forest at the point which looks darkest. Sometimes the brightest part of a shadow is the center.

On the upside, the good thing about these challenges is it brings out my competitive nature. Occasionally I might take it a bit too seriously, but on the whole it pushes me to do better every time, and to beat the other contestants. If there's no stakes then I often lose motivation.


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## Garvan (Jan 18, 2018)

Hey, anything that gets you writing is good!


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## Dino_Gonzalez (Aug 2, 2018)

This is more about you than the hobbit I think, or at least it kinda felt like 40% was about the hobbit. 20% was about you and 30% was about a book that will later be talked about. I think it was too short to really allow for an introduction that is that long.


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## Smith (Aug 6, 2018)

It was more a brief reflection than a full-fledged review.

Thanks for reading Gonzalez!


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