Discussing The Hobbit

[Merry]

Yes, Iolanthe--Shippey's idea makes sense, and I normally like those kinds of things in Tolkien that give us the idea that it is a real world, and that we don't know everything about it, just like we don't know everything about our real world. That Tolkien did this consciously is just amazing! So much control over the ideas and methods he uses.

The only children's lit thing that I found annoying in LOTR was some place, can't remember where, when a rabbit or fox or something sees the hobbits and wonders what brought four hobbits out in the wild. I think C. S. Lewis talked about the device of dressed animals or talking animals in fairy tales. Tolkien did us all a favor by separating the genre of fairy tales from that of children's lit, didn't he?

[Iolanthe]

Is it this you're thinking of Merry?

A fox passing through the wood on business of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed.

'Hobbits!' he thought. 'Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree. Three of them! There's something mighty queer behind this.' He was right, but he never found out any more about it.

It does really really, jar. It screams children's book with the idea of the fox 'on business of his own' thinking there are queer goings on. I'm surprised Tolkien didn't weed it out on one of his re-writes, when he had a better idea what sort of book LOTR was going to be. In The Hobbit it would have sat just fine.

Tolkien did us all a favor by separating the genre of fairy tales from that of children's lit, didn't he?

Yes! Fairy tales and tales of wonder used to be the staple of adult story telling but by the 19th century (maybe with the exception of the Brothers Grimm) it degenerated into whimsy for kids. Thank goodness Tolkien could see beyond that to something older and greater. But in The Hobbit the whimsy is still there. I think it's that that makes it a children's book more than anything. The quote above is the best example - the fact that it is totally out of place in LOTR but would be fine if it was in The Hobbit says everything.

[Merry]

Yes, that's the quote--thanks! You're absolutely right in your analysis, and I, too, am surprised he left it in. (I don't usually find fault with the Professor on anything, so this one must really get to me for some reason!)

Imagine if Tolkien had continued this kind of thing through LOTR: horses in Rohan and coneys in Ithilien with expressed thoughts of their own!

[Iolanthe]

That is just too awful to comtemplate!

[Merry]

So, I've been thinking: why do you think the Professor's imagination gave hobbits hairy feet?

[Iolanthe]

That's a good question! I think Shippey has a whole thing about Hobbit's being rather like rabbits despite any intent on Tolkien's part. Living in holes, hairy feet, Bilbo being compared to a bunny and a coney in the book.

Hairy feet....mmmm. I suppose he might have being trying to make them unlike humans, but not exactly like dwarves either. I don't know whether there are any hairy footed 'fairy' creatures in mythology, but I can't think of any! It does seem a bit cutesy...

Must have been one of those strange whims - but I'm sure it's helped endear Hobbits to children. At least it's barely mentioned once the story get's going.

[Merry]

That's true, Iolanthe. The only other times I can think of it entering the story are when they're barefoot in the snows of Caradhras, when Frodo accidentally steps into the slimy water outside of Moria, and when they cross the Nimrodel. I suppose this is more about being barefooted rather than hairy feet per se, though.

In some ways, going unshod allows them contact with the earth, and reinforces the naturalness of hobbits. Being unshod also is a little indicative of class differences in some places, isn't it?

[Lindariel]

In terms of The Hobbit specifically, I think Tolkien chose to make hobbits small and with woolly bare feet to appeal directly to children. What child wouldn't immediately identify with a small barefoot creature trying to make its way among "The Big People"?

Fortunately, the imagery continued to serve him well as the tale became grander and associated with his history of the elves in LOTR. I think being barefoot enhances and reinforces the "innocence" of hobbits in terms of their involvement in the larger events in Middle-earth up until the War of the Ring. They have been rather sheltered from the outside world, both due to their insular ways and to the fact that their lands have been secretly guarded by Gandalf and the Dunedain ever since Bilbo returned from his adventures. They have been more or less overlooked by the "Big People," and have largely been left alone to manage their own affairs.

They are also seen as "children" in the scheme of world affairs. Recall Aragorn's description of Merry and Pippin to Eomer: "They would be small, only children to your eyes, unshod but clad in grey."

Our hobbit heroes not only walk bare-faced into danger, they are also barefoot! I think this fact makes us automatically feel protective of the hobbits, and it is one of many very clever ways in which the Professor helps his audience to identify with the hobbits and take them into our hearts.

[Iolanthe]

I'm sure you're right, Lindariel, and their first outing was in a children's book after all. It's a good observation that their childlike qualities, innocence of the world at large and closeness to nature and the soil (literally and figuaratively) suits their role in LOTR well. I can't imagine LOTR without the Hobbit's perspective stopping it from getting too grand and inaccessible and they are the perfect bridge for us between The Hobbit and Tolkien's true inner world.

I wonder how surprised the Professor was to discover that there were Hobbit's living in Middle-earth after so many years of writing and thinking about it. They seem to have managed to hide from him too for quite a while .

[Iolanthe]

Just another thought on this - they managed to hide pretty well from the Ents too. Although he belongs in LOTR, not The Hobbit, it's an interesting point that Treebeard, the oldest living creature in Middle-earth, has never heard of Hobbits. I know Fangorn Forest is a long way from the Shire but it seems fairly incredible. It's almost as though Tolkien was making a point here, finding something to corroborate his own late 'discovery' of them and add some credence to the fact that they don't figure in the older stories. If Treebeard doesn't know of them they were indeed a quiet and well hidden people.

[librislove]

In Thomas Shippey's books on Tolkien, he hints that the Professor used the hobbits as a hook to engage readers with characters more closely resembling them and their lives than his other creations. To that end, the hobbits are essentially anachronistic--19th century rural England as opposed to medieval and mythical. They are a vehicle to tell his story in terms his readers can understand, for they too come from the same basic perceptions. Perhaps this also accounts for the hobbit's "separateness" from the rest of Middle Earth.

[Iolanthe]

Yes, I'm certain that's the case, though the way the first Hobbit just popped into his conciousness makes it unplanned. But I'm sure he saw the potential and that shaped their evolution.

[Merry]

The success of hobbits as the 'hook' is evidenced by how much more engaging LOTR is than The Sil. Tolkien was a genius for uniting the two worlds, but don't we need to attribute the germ of the idea to the fact that he had children? If he had not had children, would there have been hobbits?

[Iolanthe]

Good point. Probably not! Every child identifies with the Hobbits (then they grow into intense teenage Elves and adult Rangers . Or was that just me ?).

[librislove]

Yes--good points Iolanthe and Merry--I want to be an intense teenage elf involved with a certain very adult ranger....with a hobbit sense of playfullness. In other words, all of it! (and the endurance of a dwarf--I will need it.)