Just two years after I read and reviewed The Hobbit, another boy's ready to read it aloud. At this rate there will be another review in 2018 and finally in 2020, and then I'll be out of boys to read it to.
What stood out to me this time was the sheer inventiveness of Tolkien's narrative. It's not enough to kill the dragon, there's a battle after. It's not enough to have two or three, you have to have a Battle of Five Armies. And the importance of having Dain the Dwarf manning the Lonely Mountain instead of Smaug the Dragon is not really spelled out here, but you can argue that the events of The Hobbit are important to making the world "savable" in Lord of the Rings. Maybe it's just Peter Jackson's impending movies in the back of my mind, but this time through the parallels between the children's book and the adult's trilogy stand out to me. It seems to fit together better the more times I read it.
It gives me hope that The Hobbit movie trilogy will be up to snuff ... more than the Star Wars prequel triology, at least.
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1 comment:
You can always read it to my kids. JT might be ready to sit through it in 2025. :)
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