The Hobbit, there and back again to my childhood...

The Hobbit was a big part of my childhood, but here is the weird part.

I never read the novel.

I read the graphic novel adaptation a few times but what mostly fueled my knowledge of the plot was the 1977 animated film. I also decided I needed to read the novel as part of my “classics Bucket list” and also before I saw the second installment of the Peter Jackson movies. (So I won’t be those types of people who watch the movies but never make an attempt at the novels) However the animated film is probably one of the main reasons I never wanted to pick up the novel until now.

Simply, The Hobbit terrified me.

I grew up at the dawning age of VCRs and readily available children’s films. My parents had three “kids” movies on Laserdisc and the Hobbit was one of them. (the others  were Watership Down and Pinocchio which also terrified me in their own ways) But the Hobbit was sheer terror on the boogeyman level for me as a little kid.  I still watched it but when the goblins literally popped out of the black frame, I covered my eyes. The spiders (shudder) and Smaug with his dog like face that didn’t really even look like a real dragon. Oh yes Smaug was the stuff of nightmares. I was convinced that Smaug was going to steal me from my bed while I slept, eat me, and then steal my jewelry box.

The Lord of the Rings film and the of course the first installment of the Hobbit I viewed with a different aspect. I found them entertaining, using the strength of adventure and thrills to uplift their audiences. So I was curious when I started reading the book, if the (oh so handsome) faces of Richard Armitage and Martin Freeman would be the images conjured in my imagination as I read.

They weren’t.

Opening the book and reading the words that sounded so familiar but I actually had never read before, I was sucked back to those original images of hooded dwarves and shadowy forests and I had been accustomed to as a kid. No sir, no archery antics of Orlando Bloom or jokes of James Nesbit to amuse you here. I read this book and didn’t feel the sweeping excitement of adventure. This journey is simply, and hardly unexpected. In Middle Earth, if you are small everything will try to kill you or eat you. I knew this as a child, when I was small. I recognize this as an adult (who is still very short in stature) We all love Gollum and doing our best my precious impersonations, but do not forgot, Gollum is a creature who was planning to eat Bilbo (a creature of his own size) if he wins a game of riddles. That’s messed up. The goblins sing songs about burning the dwarves alive in trees as they light to fire. And The Hobbit is sometimes classified as a children’s book. WTF?

 (Those miserable goblins songs are now stuck in my head)

I will say I enjoyed the novel in a different way then I enjoy the films. The films are defiantly more action, adventure and feel good while the books is much more danger, peril, uncertainty and good God how has Bilbo not being eaten yet?

I’m also still terrified. This book frightens me.  This book didn’t help me conquer my childhood fears; they cemented them. Black water, giant bears, Gollum’s underlying cannibalism, giant spiders, Mirkwood. And Smaug (still terrifying)

The Greatest Adventure is what lies ahead.... oh and death watch out for that too.