The History of the Hobbit (Contains some "Spoilers"

[Voronwë the Faithful]

On the other hand, as Rateliff correctly points out, there is absolutely no indication that the Goblins of the Misty Mountains have any connection at all to the Necromancer. So I do think that soli is right; Tolkien was leaving his options open.

Come to think of it, the independance of the orcs of the Misty Mountains under the "Great Goblin" does bring to mind the "old days" that Gorbag and Shagrat talk about returning to, doesn't it?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Also it seems that the Elvenking from the start must have been conceived as some other person than Thingol, his caves a rude echo of glorious Menegroth, and located (explicitly) in Taur-nu-Fuin (to which, in the Lay of Leithian, Thu fled after his defeat by Lúthien).

Rateliff does make a pretty compelling argument that the Elvenking could have been Thingol in Tolkien's original conception. The strongest piece of evidence that points to is the statement that "most" of the Wood-elves were among the people of the "Sea-elves" (which became the Teleri) who had never been to the "great Fairy-land of the West." As Rateliff points out, the only one of the "Sea-elves" who ever was reported to have gone to Valinor was Linwe Tinto/tinwë Linto/Tinwelint/Thingol. But Tolkien may have just been forgetting (or ignoring) that fact when he wrote that statement.

[solicitr]

That's I think a stretch: the statement parses more reasonably as suggesting that most of the wood-elves were Teleri, but others were Noldorin (consonant with the Quenta); or else the simple observation that a considerable part of the Teleri did of course go to Valinor.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

True enough.

[axordil]

All right, maybe I do have room for ONE more book.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Two books, actually. There are two volumes of The History of the Hobbit, "Mr. Baggins" and "Return to Bag End". But they are really one book, divided into two parts.

[axordil]

Well, I guess I didn't really need that first edition of Tree and Leaf.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I finished the portions of the book dealing with the drafting of the first edition of the book (what Rateliff designates as the first three phases), and moved on to the discussion of the second edition revision, which was done by Tolkien in 1947, and resulted in the new, revised edition being released in 1950. I was, of course, familiar with the basic story of how the Riddles in the Dark chapter came to be changed to bring Gollum's character more in line with that which was developing in the sequel, but it is really fascinating to read about how the change unfolded in detail. Probably the most interesting fact is that the crucial passage (certainly the most critical passage in The Hobbit in terms of developing the themes of the Lord of the Rings, and perhaps the most important in the book period), where Bilbo first considers stabbing Gollum to death, but then is moved to pity when he is given a glimpse of his adversary as a shrunken old hobbit, was written at roughly the same time as the companion passage in LOTR where Gollum briefly appears (unseen by his companions) as that shrunken old hobbit. It amazes me to think that these two passage linking two books that were originally published almost 20 years apart were contemporaneous with each other.

Now I finally get to go on to the "fifth phase" the aborted 1960 revisions in which Tolkien had planned to bring the whole book into alignment with its sequel.

[solicitr]

IIRC, wasn't "The Stairs of Cirith Ungol" written in May 1944?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yes, it was, and so was the original drafting of the revised Riddles in the Dark, although it was not sent to Allen and Unwin until 1947 (and not published until 1950). I should have been more clear about that before.

[Sassafras]

Hoom. Tolkien was a first class procrastinator, wasn't he?

I do wish he had made the final 1960 revisions .... it might have made TH more palatable for me. I've made the attempt to reread it (concurrent with Letters) and just had to close the book after the first few pages again. I can't get past the tweeness. Perhaps I should skip the opening chapters altogether.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm just starting to read that now. It is the opening chapters that he primarily rewrote, and he does remove much of the tweeness. Think "The Quest of Erebor" from Unfinished Tales, and that gives you a sense of the direction the tone moved towards (although of course it is not written from Gandalf's perspective).

[Athrabeth]

I'm reading The Hobbit to my Grade Five class........at least I was before the Christmas break, and will continue to do so after I get back from Mexico. A few of the kids have started reading along with me, using their own copies of the book. I always like it when that happens.

I'm very glad I have an appropriate audience for "the read" because I doubt if I would ever pick it up on my own. It's actually a wonderful book to share with kids of that age. After reading "Riddles in the Dark", I asked the kids to come up with as many qualities as they could for Gollum's character. Their list (and some of the insights it reflected) was impressive: lonely, wretched, wicked, deceitful, mad, scheming, clever, ruthless, stealthy, cunning, adaptable, pathetic. Just to make sure they weren't thinking of "movie Gollum", they had to cite the passage from the chapter that would back up each quality. There aren't many "secondary characters" in children's literature that can claim that kind of complexity. Afterwards, each student composed an illustrated poem from Gollum's point of view.

Just wait until we do the same for Gandalf!

[solicitr]

Sassafras:

If all else fails, skip ahead to Chapter 6 'Flies and Spiders.' Tolkien loses much of the tweeness and jollity and begins to evoke his trademark 'feel' in Mirkwood; and by the climax of the book you're recognizably in the world of The Lord of the Rings: 'as retold for younger readers,' perhaps, but manifestly in that universe.

Certainly no one should do without the inimitable conversations between Bilbo and Smaug, with their deft blend of wit and menace.

EDIT: that should be Ch. 8.

[Sassafras]

Ah, thank you, solicitr, I will take your suggestion and go from there.

And report back when I'm done.

One does feel a tiny bit guilty skipping the opening chapters ... but I've done that with LotR for years now. I invariably begin with The Shadow of the Past and then go straight to the Old Forest; although, I hasten to add, for some inexplicable reason I never skip the prologue.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Please don't skip Riddles in the Dark, Sass.

[Sassafras]

No, Voronwë, I shan't.

I can still remember 'Riddles' quite vividly. I think that's because Gollum is such an extraordinary character plus all of the references in LotR. Still, we shall see how accurate my memory is when I get actually there. It was a very long time ago .... 42 years, in fact.

<insert appropriate generic comment on the swift passage of time here>

[Voronwë the Faithful]

N.E., I can now answer the question that you asked (in another thread) about why Tolkien abandoned the 1960 effort to revise The Hobbit to bring it in line with LOTR. Rateliff says that according to Christopher Tolkien, when Tolkien had complete the revisions for the first two chapters and started the third, he loaned the material to an unidentified female friend to get an outside opinion. Her reaction was apparently something on the order of "this is wonderful, but its not The Hobbit." Tolkien apparently respected this person's opinion, and decided to let The Hobbit stand on its own voice and merits, rather than bring it into accord with its sequel. I have mixed feelings about that decision. Some of the revisions served to lessen the characters of both Bilbo and Thorin (and to make Gandalf more remote and authoritative), and I'm not sure I like those changes. The elimination of much of the whimsical nature would have improved it on some ways for sure, but it also would have made it less its own separate work. In any event, what is done is done, and Tolkien certainly isn't going to make those changes now.

[axordil]

I'm quite happy with the Hobbit as is, not only because it's a fine children's/YA work, but because the whimsical, mimetic tone becomes the reference baseline for the opening of LOTR, and thus the jumping off point.

[N.E. Brigand]

N.E., I can now answer the question that you asked (in another thread) about why Tolkien abandoned the 1960 effort to revise The Hobbit to bring it in line with LOTR...

Thanks very much, Voronwë. I look forward to reading Rateliff's book.