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<blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 8859561" data-attributes="member: 11760">Well, I say &quot;reading,&quot; but I'm listening to Andy Serkis' audiobook, which I strongly recommend.I've re-read the Hobbit a number of times over the years -- my dad reading the first page of the book is my very first memory -- and every time, something new jumps out at me.This time, it's that JRRT talks about dragons and princesses in need of being rescued, and talks about &quot;light, dark and sea elves&quot; all going off to Faerie (in the West, of course). While all of that could map onto LotR's version of Middle-Earth, it's hard to imagine everyone in Gondor telling stories of princesses being kidnapped by dragons.This is the later LotR-ized version of the Hobbit, as far as I know/can imagine, but it has a much more traditional, even fairy tale vibe than LotR. Obviously, officially, it's the same setting, but it feels like an inflection point where JRRT could have gone in a direction that was less mythic, more pastoral. There's more of that in the (not Middle-Earth) story of Farmer Giles of Ham, so it's not like JRRT didn't enjoy this mode as well. I had just forgotten just how different the world is in the Hobbit alone, compared to all of the structures that were constructed and published later.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Whizbang Dustyboots, post: 8859561, member: 11760"] Well, I say "reading," but I'm listening to Andy Serkis' audiobook, which I strongly recommend. I've re-read the Hobbit a number of times over the years -- my dad reading the first page of the book is my very first memory -- and every time, something new jumps out at me. This time, it's that JRRT talks about dragons and princesses in need of being rescued, and talks about "light, dark and sea elves" all going off to Faerie (in the West, of course). While all of that [I]could[/I] map onto LotR's version of Middle-Earth, it's hard to imagine everyone in Gondor telling stories of princesses being kidnapped by dragons. This is the later LotR-ized version of the Hobbit, as far as I know/can imagine, but it has a much more traditional, even fairy tale vibe than LotR. Obviously, officially, it's the same setting, but it feels like an inflection point where JRRT could have gone in a direction that was less mythic, more pastoral. There's more of that in the (not Middle-Earth) story of Farmer Giles of Ham, so it's not like JRRT didn't enjoy this mode as well. I had just forgotten just how different the world is in the Hobbit alone, compared to all of the structures that were constructed and published later. [/QUOTE]

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