Review of Peter Jackson's *The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey*

Reviewing Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will prove a challenge for me. Although I don't believe in such a thing as "objectivitiy" in these matters of movie reviews, I do believe one should at least try to limit their bias--i.e. keep a general audience in mind--when it comes to reccommending a movie. With this film, I just can't do that! I love The Hobbit! Book, radio drama, animated film, live action film -- whatever. This novel was the story that revealed faerie to me.

The consensus at this point seems to be that the film is good but not amazing, that it satisfies the Tolkien fan more than a generic audience. That may be true, because I'm a Tolkien fan and I was blown away by the film. The cinematography was beautiful! The acting was great! The special effects were amazing! The narrative of The Hobbit was not only accurately related but it was invigorated through thoughtful and respectful embellishment!

Of course there were a few things I want to quibble with. Although I ended up liking the film's version of Thorin Oakenshield as the film progressed, I felt as though his character was initially portrayed as too young and not elegant or "kingly" enough. I really liked the portrayal of the dwarves in general, however. I like how all the dwarves had unique characteristics and how they all seemed to be--at least visually--distinctive characters. There is the "Dungeons and Dragons" fantasy stereotype of the dwarf: huge beard and mustache, short, axe, chainmail. I like how the film makers pushed against this. I really liked the portrayal of Fili and Kili. There is a single line in The Hobbit where they are referred to as the youngest of the dwarves, and Jackson really picked up on that.

One of the great things about Jackson and his fellow film makers is their capacity to take minor references by Tolkien and to amplify and foreground them. They did this with Aragorn and the Path of the Dead in the Lord of the Rings film. And they definitely do it throughout this film.

I wish the eagles would have talked. As a kid, reading that novel for the first time, I was so intrigued by how the eagles began talking after they rescued the dwarves. I thought they were portrayed quite beautifully in the film, but the character of Gwaihir, king of the eagles, was so impressive to me as a child reader (this is one element the Rankin and Bass cartoon definately has over the film). I love the exchange between Gandalf and the eagles after the eagle's drop the dwarves off on the edge of Mirkwood forest. Maybe they'll include that in the next film.

I really liked how the film was tied into Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I loved the beginning where Frodo makes a cameo, where he pins the "No Admittance" sign on the gate, takes a book, and goes to a field to wait on Gandalf in order to surprise him. I've seen the Peter Jackson films so many times, it was wonderful to see them directly tied into this film.

I know the meeting with Radagast was a major embellishment on Jackson's part; however, I couldn't help but like it. I found that quirky character hilarious. The idea--that he would be dragged around by a band of rabbits on a sled--is hilarious! The way he was portrayed--a kind of forest hermit--resonated with me for some reason. I love the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, the mythology surrounding the books, and so any effort to visualize the full depth of Tolkien's world and to tell stories about it --whether the media be film or pastiches--I'm a supporter of. I want to know more about Middle Earth, and seeing the brief reference to Radagast from The Lord of the Rings made into a living, breathing character was great.

All in all, this was a great film! I'm eager to see it again.

A Book Review of Lin Carter's *Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers* (Sauk City: Arkham House, 1976)

I've recently been reading Lin Carter's famous essay collection about the pioneers of sword and sorcery, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy (Sauk City: Arkham House, 1976). It's a fun book, a relaxing read, but in terms of analysis, it falls short. It's more and less a biographical reference guide for a variety of heroic fantasy writers. I came to it specifically because of the chapter on Clark Ashton Smith. I'm trying to write a chapter in my dissertation about Smith, and locating basic biographical material has been difficult.

The most interesting essay in the anthology, I think, is the opening one: "The Sword of Faerie." In this essay, De Camp surveys imaginative literature from its mythical "origin" to its most recent incarnations. He effectively binds together the classical manifestations of heroic fantasy like Ancient Greek and Anglo-Saxon epic poetry to the modern manifestations, e.g. Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian stories, H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos stories, and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Further, he binds together the Gothic novel, the historical novel, the novel of romantic primitivism, in an attempt to portray imaginative literature as a kind of thread running through literary history.

Other essays are worth reading for their information but I was reluctant of some of the analysis. The one on Robert E. Howard offers an unsympathetic view of the writer's life and deals in suspicious armchair psychology. Of particular note is Carter's essay on J.R.R. Tolkien. He states that the The Hobbit comes close to "universal appeal" and rightly observes that "few works can be read with pleasure" by both adult and young readers (224). I completely agree. To corroborate Carter's idea, I'll say that The Hobbit was a profound experience for me as a young kid. I read it in the 5th grade and have had a habit of reading and re-reading it since. I return to the book often.

Carter also claims that Tolkien was what he calls a "rurophile," a worshiper of an idealized vision of nature. He states that, for Tolkien, "life in the Industrial Age had some of the qualities of life in prison" (234). I find that intriguing, this notion that a sense of the cruelty and inhumanity modern life shades Tolkien's work; however, Carter seems to criticize or at least poke fun at Tolkien for his apparent negative vision of modernity. There's a strange propensity in Carter's work to interpret or morally censure the personalities and lives of the writer's he is studying (writer's he ostensibly enjoys).

This is a classic text, I'd say, worth the money and the time; however, Carter's style of literary criticism is just strange. It hybridizes basic historical literary research with psychological case studies. At the same he's relating for you essential information about these writers--in bald "info-dump" fashion--he's also "judging" them, speculating about whether they were psychologically sound.

To an extent, as a literary criticism, it's kind of a parody of the Freudian psychoanalytical literary criticism that was vogue in the 40s and 50s.

The Two Experiences of the Lord of the Rings: the Novels, the Films

I've started rereading J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. I'll confess. I've read The Hobbit many more times than LOTR. Also, I've watched Peter Jackson's movie versions, the Ralph Bakshi animated versions, many, many times, to the extent that I sometimes conflate those narratives with the original narrative. And so,  rereading this novel (last time I read it was in undergraduate) some of its original strangeness shines through.

One thing that strikes me about reading the novel is how feasible the world of Middle Earth is in the novels and how epic and somewhat grandiose it is in the Peter Jackson films. There's a kind of concreteness and ontological weight, if you will, to the Middle Earth of the novels that just it not there in the films. For me, in the Jackson films, the world is so colorful, so vibrant, and so artistic--beautiful, sublime, horrifying--that it seems unreal. Middle Earth in the Jackson films is so intense makes me focus on the technology and production value. What I mean is, I can't forget the bluescreens, the CGI, the props.

With the novels, the strangeness of the world, its tangibility, its history subordinates the prose style. In other words, the story being related seems to have a life of its own that precedes any narrative or literary stylistic acrobatics Tolkien might be able to pull off.

I know you're waiting for it! I'm not going to recite that lame adage, "The books are so much better than the film!" Why? Because I don't think such a move is very useful or interesting, comparing the books to the film. The only thing they share are single narrative. Artworks are composed of many, many things aside from narrative. Narrative is just one element that creates emotion.

For me, the books and the films are two separate experiences, two different media that evoke in audiences qualitatively distinct aesthetic responses. You watch films with lots of people; you read books by yourself. The dialog in a novel can be charged with lyrical beauty, and yet--the action passages can only achieve a certain amount of excitement. In the films the battle scenes are astonishing and exciting while the dialog, though intriguing, loses is nuance through truncation and needs to be bouyed by a soundtrack of emotionally charged music.

Long story short: two seperate experiences.

But I will give you this: rereading LOTR makes me realize how much the various film versions of Tolkien's masterpieces have taken liberties with the narrative.

The Weird History of the Novel (Part 5): *The Hobbit* and the Juxtaposition of "Epic" and "Realistic" Narrative Modes

Tolkien's illustration of "the Lonely mountain"

So, today was the third day in the "History of the Novel" class that I'm teaching that focused on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. We have one more day with it. And in the course of the discussion my take on The Hobbit crystallized. I'm taking this post as an opportunity to get it down, before it flies the coop of my brain, if you will. What is a "Web Log" for if not to log such things, I ask?

Here's my thesis put simply. I'll back up my claims below. The Hobbit represents an important moment in the history of the novel because it combines two types of narrative: (1) the realistic mode and (2) the epic mode. Let me explain what I mean by this.

We started the class with Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. This novel is often cited as "the first novel," and it represents a new kind of narrative for a variety of reasons. To make my case I need to list some of its characteristics.

Main Characteristics of the "Realist Novel"

(1) The characters featured aren't aristocrats (lords, ladies, knights, warlocks, etc.); rather, they are middle class men of business.

(2) The narrator spends time describing the micro-details of the fictional world. Lots of time in Robinson Crusoe is spent on details like what Robinson eats, how he gets his food, what kind of shelter he builds, what he wears, etc.. We take it for granted now that this level of detail is treated by novels.

(3) The narrator spends time on "psychological introspection." Robinson often reflects on his life, where he has been, what kind of person he is, and how he should change. Also, he undergoes some changes.

(4) There are no mythical elements. No dragons. No wizards. No ghosts.

Let's compare these elements to the other kind of narrative I think The Hobbit incorporates.

General Characteristics of the "Epic or Romance" 
(As an example, let's think of, say, Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur)

(1) Characters are aristocrats and royalty.

(2) The narrator does not spend time on micro-details of life and dwells, rather, on "globally significant things" like political alliances, personality conflicts, love affairs, and hatreds.

(3) The characters are not psychologically introspective and therefore appear psychologically flat. They do not undergo any apparent changes. Crisis rises from the interaction between static personality traits.

(4) There are indeed mythical elements: magical knights, fairies, wizards, giants, magical items.

***

The innovation of The Hobbit is that it combines these elements together. It strikes both an "epic" and "realist" tone. Let me highlight a few ways that it does this.

(1) Bilbo isn't an aristocrat. He's a middle-class fella, a kind of gentleman akin to Robinson; and yet, he interacts with epic characters like Elrond, Beorn, the Goblin King, the King of the Eagles, the King of the Elves, Bard Bowman. Bilbo is a normal fella. And yet he rubs shoulders with the "shakers and movers" of the world who usually populate epic narratives.

(2) The narrator spends time on micro-details, like how Bag End is built; indeed, pages and pages will be given over to meditations on what, say, the Elvish King's hall looks like; and yet--in spite of this slow narrative pace, entire battles can be glossed in a paragraph; epic battles with dragons can be related in a few sentences. We have both narrative registers: the focus on the surface-texture of the world characteristic of novels. And, we have epic narrative pacing--Esgaroth is destroyed in a paragraph; the battle of five armies is related in a few pages. And so forth.

(3) There are characters who undergo changes in this novel and there are characters who stay the same. Beorn, the Elf-King, Bard Bowman, the Master of Laketown, the Goblin King--these guys don't change. They are who they are. Bilbo and Thorin, the dwarves and Gandalf--they are psychologically complex in a way only modern "novelistic" characters can be: inconsistent, self-questioning, surprising, evolving.

(4) In The Hobbit you get meditations on both the quotidian and the epic. There are long descriptions of how many coat pegs Bilbo has; there are passages relating what he eats and his genealogy. AND! And there are passages portraying fights with giant spiders, goblin armies, encounters with strange unknown monsters (i.e. Gollum), dragons, wizards, wargs!

In sum, we have in J.R.R. Tolkien's novel an important moment in the history of the novel because he brings together two separate narrative modes: the realist and the epic.

The Weird History of the Novel (Part 4): Comparing *The Hobbit* to *Robinson Crusoe*

So, this afternoon I begin teaching *The Hobbit* in my history of the novel class. I feel like this is an important moment because that book is what got me into reading and writing in the first place. I purchased a copy of it from a book fair in the 7th grade on a whim. I'd read novels before that, but none of them stirred me the way this one had. After *The Hobbit* fantasy literature had become one of the major obsessions in my life.

***

Realism and Mythology

Where does *The Hobbit* fall in the history of the novel? Well, I think *The Hobbit* represents an important innovation in the history of a novel. In *The Hobbit* you have a mixture of two styles: realism and mythology. For me, *The Hobbit* (along with a lot of other texts--particularly Robert E. Howard's Conan stories) inaugurates a tradition of literature that combines realist conventions with mythological conventions.

What do I mean by "realism"? In terms of literary art we can perhaps mythologize the beginning of realism in the first book we looked in my history of the novel class, namely, Daniel Defoe's *Robinson Crusoe.* We can think of realism as both a style and a thematic content.

The Style of Realism

In terms of style, we have a slow narrative pace. Defoe spends a lot of time in his novel talking about the surface texture of the world. He refers to measurements and the quantities and the texture of the sea. I'm not saying this sort of reference didn't take in past literature. I am suggesting, though, that the way Defoe refers to the surface texture of the world is unique here. He just describes it baldly and not through allusion or simile: "e.g. the wine-dark ocean". He does not use the flourished style of the epic poet; rather, he uses the "journalistic" style of a natural philosopher or surveyor.

The Thematic Content of Realism

In terms of content, we have a narrative focused on a "normal guy." Robinson Crusoe is a middle class guy who attempts to make a fortune through an entrepreneurial enterprise. He gets stranded on the island and has to survive. Thus, we hear nothing about gods and goblins but a lot about how he gets his food, what he wears, the weather, his attempts to build a shelter. Sure, there are elements where he talks about his spiritual thoughts; and yet--these thoughts suggest less the epic mode and more the introspective, inner-focused psychologizing of later Victorian novelists.

Comparing *The Hobbit* to *Robinson Crusoe*

To a large extent Bilbo Baggins is a perfect parallel to Robinson Crusoe. Bilbo is "well to do" but he's not royalty or aristocracy. He lives in a comfortable, secure environment; Crusoe begins his life in England to parents who are going to set him up in law. In terms of style, the first part of *The Hobbit* hews pretty closely to the realism pioneered in *Robinson Crusoe*. What do the first passages relate? Dinner plans. What the dwarves and company eat, drink, and talk about. To a large extent the first chapter of *The Hobbit* ("A Unexpected Party") is more a "novel of manners" suggestive of Jane Austen's works than any epic poem or adventure fiction.

There is an important moment, however, when the dwarves begin singing their song about the coming of Smaug. Here we have the epic mode entering into the narrative. These passages are versified. There are strange, lyrical syntaxes and rare words are used. Dragons show up and exaggerated emotions are evoked. When the dwarves start singing about the desolation of Smaug we have left the novel of manners and moved into the epic.

Conclusion

I'm going to write more about *The Hobbit* as I spend time on it in class. I have this week and next set aside for it. But here's my hunch at this  point: the aesthetic power of *The Hobbit*--why it is an important "stop" on the journey of the history of the novel--derives from its "mixture" of two distinct narrative registers, the mythological and the realistic.

The Animation Masterpieces of Rankin and Bass (Part 1 of 3): The Hobbit

Today I want to do something significantly less academic. I’m reviewing one of my favorite films, Rankin and Bass’s, The Hobbit. This will be the first of a series of reviews. I'm going to review two more Rankin and Bass films, which I believe are masterpieces. And so, you know which way the reviews are going to go. Think of them as less reviews and more homages. To two films I aim to celebrate in the coming weeks are Flight of Dragons (1982) and The Last Unicorn (1982).

This is a great film filled with adventure, excitement, wonder, and, believe it or not, action (it was 1977 and swordfights and stabbing giant spiders was still o.k. for wee folks).

I don’t think I need to summarize the widely known plot of The Hobbit, which is very much hewed to by this film. That’s perhaps one of the greatest characteristics of this film: its commitment to accurately relating the plot of the novel. I can’t think of any glaring revision and only one omission (spoiler: the Beorn episode before Bilbo and the dwarfs enter Mirkwood is left out).

To begin, there’s some strange quality about Rankin and Bass’s animation style. It has an authenticity, a kind of realism, that other animation styles (say, for example, Disney’s style in The Black Cauldron), completely lack. There’s a strangeness to the way certain things are drawn. For example, the wood elves. Their legs are really long. They have green skin. Their features are inhuman: wide cheek-bones, flat brows. In juxtaposition to the humans that appear in this film, they look completely different; indeed, they look like a completely different species.

The voice acting, too, is wonderful. John Huston as the voice of Gandalf is absolutely amazing. His smoky, intense voice relates a sense of wisdom and knowledge of other worlds. There’s a kind of tone to his expression, a steadiness that makes it seem as if he is reciting his dialog or expressing an incantation as opposed to merely speaking. Usually this would probably be chalked up to bad voice acting, hewing too closely to “reading the script” as opposed to “acting the script”. But, for Gandalf, it truly works.

Other memorable voices are Brother Theodore’s voice for Gollum. Brother Theodore shows up in a lot of Rankin and Bass’s productions. His strained, high accented voice, sounds exotic and otheworldly. And his screaming of, “Baggins! We hates it! Forever!” kind of creeped me out as a kid. I remember him as the assistant, Ruhk, to Mommy Fortuna in Rankin and Bass’s famous adaptation of Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn.

The music is worth mentioning. It has a very “1970s folk musicy” feel to it that I love. Many of the songs are adaptations of songs written by Tolkien (lyrics only, of course); and to this day, when I’m reading through The Hobbit, I read the lyrics with those melodies in mind.

A more subtle characteristic endears me to this film: its color palette. I don’t know if it’s just my old VHS, but there is a subdued quality to the film’s color palette. The range of colors is softer, more natural, than, say, the intense variety of a Disney film, even an early one like Snow White. I’m not going to try and explain why, but I prefer this subdued color palette. It truly creates a wonderful effect. An important character in The Hobbit is the wildland itself; and when the large natural vistas are portrayed—forests, river valleys, the desolation of Smaug—their coloring and the fine detail of their rendering makes them feel authentic.

The best compliment I can make of this film is that my wife and I, both adults, fall asleep to this film whenever we’ve had a stressful day. It’s an enduring source of comfort, a true "safety-blanket" of a movie, that, through some strange alchemy of the right style of animation, the right voice actors, and the right music, truly stirs in me a sense of wonder.