My first Tolkien

I have finally finished a Tolkien book. I know since I have read a huge share of escapist fantasy that it seems I would have read a Tolkien before, I hadn’t.

I tried to read Fellowship in high school, but it was too wordy. I tried after college also, but still found it borrring. Really? A 30 page dissertation on the entire history of Hobbits? Too much. However a friend of mine gave me a copy of The Hobbit, and I read it a few days ago.

Not that great, actually. It seems written for an adult to read to a child. Not being able to compare it to other Tolkien books I am going to compare it to the LOTR movie trilogy I did happen to have an attention span to enjoy. I can’t see how those fruity dwarves; fruity elves evolve in 60 or so years to become awesome killing machines.

I thought about quitting the book when the dwarves were cleaning Bilbo’s house and were singing a song about cleaning his house, like they just ad-libed some song. I can’t remember, but I think one of the dwarves was named Rodgers, and another named Hammerstein. And the elves! Letting some weak old fat hobbit run around their cave for a month stealing food and releasing the dwarves.

I can’t wait for the movie to come out, I bet it’s going to be great.