Hobbit: A Book Experience

It was in my undergraduate 3rd year that I watched the Lord of The Rings movie trilogy for the first time. It was Diwali, and I and my sister sat for 11 hours continuously and watched this movie. We felt like just other residents of Middle Earth by the time the movie ended. Later when I went back to the hostel after a few days, the hangover of LOTR was adamant to not fade away. I thus went to our University library, and in the literature section saw one old, yellow-colored fragile pages bound book with the title Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. My respect towards our three stories high library increased manyfold that day. Later when I brought the book to my hostel, I got a colored printout of the map of Middle Earth, got it laminated, and stuck it on my room’s wall. With this map along, I could track the exact location of the members of the fellowship of the ring till they reached Mordor. This was the passion I had for this book. And to live those exciting times yet again, I picked up the book “Hobbit” by J. R. R. Tolkien yet again. It is a prelude to LOTR.

This book tells the story of Bilbo Baggins, a group of 13 dwarves, and Gandalf the wizard. How this group is on a mission to bring back the treasure of the family of dwarves which a dragon called Smaug has been resting upon and illegally claiming to be his. It is yet again an adventure book. It is in this book that Bilbo gets the Ring from the cave of Smeagol. People who have read or seen any of the movies based on LOTR may be well versed with all of these characters.

Just like the last time when I read LOTR, I was yet again enthralled by the creativity of Tolkien. Each of his books based on Middle Earth always has space for battles and war. But they are not completely cruel and bloodthirsty. There is a conscience wrapped around those wars that he describes. There is surprisingly also a flavor of softness involved, which mostly comes through the actions of the Hobbit involved. Tolkien himself was a soldier in the First World War and he started writing the Middle Earth series immediately after the war. Wars are not beautiful sights. They must be traumatic for many soldiers and participants. Yet the way Tolkien dealt with such trauma in an extremely artistic and poetic way, is commendable and inspiring. You can buy the book from Amazon.