Inventing a Genre: Tolkien's "The Hobbit"
This week, after an unplanned hiatus, we examine some excerpts that helped create modern fantasy as we know it.
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What more can be said about the Internet's favorite writer, J.R.R. Tolkien, that hasn't been said a million times over? Not just a genre, but a whole industry of modern fantasy is predicated on his work: books, board games, movies, video games and more. A pillar of nerd culture, and perhaps the foundation too, something about Tolkien's imaginary world invites obsession, and a desire to stay there forever.
But how does Tolkien do this? Middle Earth, in its original form anyway, was nothing but words on paper. How are generations of readers so captivated by a world they cannot see, hear, or feel? Given the project of this Substack, you will not be surprised that I consider the character of Tolkien's writing to be the major culprit here. Being a linguist, Tolkien himself no doubt understood the power of language, especially as it intersected with his other interests: myths and folklore. Language plays upon the mind in a way our senses do not, and oftentimes it is only a delightful turn of phrase, or a vivid line, that can give a tale real life and root it in the cultural consciousness. Today we shall try and see how Tolkien did this in his seminal work, The Hobbit.
Stories exist on multiple levels, and no doubt the concepts, as much as the words, contribute to Tolkien's sustained popularity. So many cozy fantasy tropes that the genre couldn't do without today were—if not invented, given their canonical modern form in his work: The dwarf, the elf, the wizard, the party of comrades, the quest. These are charming elements that obviously have staying power. But it's one thing to have these elements, and its another thing to render them with such richness and vitality that they cannot be forgotten. Let's see some examples.
There is a disarming formality, humor, and even politeness in the early pages of the book, when we are first introduced to hobbits and the Shire. The opening lines are iconic:
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
This reads quite like a fairy tale, and you can just imagine the words being read by a kindly grandfather, making the child on his knee giggle as he exaggerates words like worms and oozy. The tone here is familiar and comfortable—which accentuates the familiar and comfortable nature of hobbits and the Shire. The language elevates the elements as they're rendered. Continuing:
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats—the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill—The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it—and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden, and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.
You could stop here and you already have the whole essence of the Shire we all know and love. The tone is so funny and whimsical; who can help but smile at the idea of a tiny man in a cozy hole with lots of pantries and kitchens? This kind of description, sprawling, detailed, vivid and delightful, is the keystone of this book.
No scene from the Hobbit is more iconic than Bilbo discovering the ring, and his game of riddles with Gollum. Not only because it foreshadows Tolkien's later trilogy, which takes the fantasy elements of The Hobbit to new heights, but because it is so unique. A million tense moments in fantasy are solved by spells and swordplay, so many they blend together—but we all remember the one decided by riddles in the dark.
But these ordinary above ground everyday sort of riddles were tiring for him. Also they reminded him of days when he had been less lonely and sneaky and nasty, and that put him out of temper. What is more they made him hungry; so this time he tried something a bit more difficult and unpleasant:
It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt. It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills. It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.Unfortunately for Gollum Bilbo had heard that sort of thing before; and the answer was all round him any way. "Dark!" he said without even scratching his head or putting on his thinking cap.
A box without hinges, key, or lid, Yet golden treasure inside is hid,he asked to gain time, until he could think of a really hard one. This he thought a dreadfully easy chestnut, though he had not asked it in the usual words. But it proved a nasty poser for Gollum. He hissed to himself, and still he did not answer; he whispered and sputtered.
After some while Bilbo became impatient. "Well, what is it?" he said. "The answer's not a kettle boiling over, as you seem to think from the noise you are making."
"Give us a chance; let it give us a chance, my preciouss—ss—ss."
"Well," said Bilbo after giving him a long chance, "what about your guess?"
But suddenly Gollum remembered thieving from nests long ago, and sitting under the river bank teaching his grandmother, teaching his grandmother to suck—"Eggses!" he hissed. "Eggses it is!" Then he asked:
Alive without breath, As cold as death; Never thirsty, ever drinking, All in mail never clinking.He also in his turn thought this was a dreadfully easy one, because he was always thinking of the answer. But he could not remember anything better at the moment, he was so flustered by the egg-question. All the same it was a poser for poor Bilbo, who never had anything to do with the water if he could help it. I imagine you know the answer, of course, or can guess it as easy as winking, since you are sitting comfortably at home and have not the danger of being eaten to disturb your thinking. Bilbo sat and cleared his throat once or twice, but no answer came.
After a while Gollum began to hiss with pleasure to himself: "Is it nice, my preciousss? Is it juicy? Is it scrumptiously crunchable?" He began to peer at Bilbo out of the darkness.
There's so much to say about this scene. Gollum is given incredible personality here: We get a sense of him as a tortured and ancient creature as he strains to recall what eggs were like in his distant past. His idiosyncratic speech pattern is both insidious and hilarious when needed—the way he cries "Eggses!" in the middle of a life or death contest is the perfect mixture of both. And as he licks his chops while Bilbo thinks: "Is it scrumptiously crunchable?" Tolkien could have very easily had Bilbo encounter any old monster down there in the dark. Instead he created one with incredible personality, and as a hitman named Jules once said, personality goes a long way.
There is another dimension of depth to this scene, as it harkens back to old Norse mythology, which was fond of the sacred riddle contest (as between Odin and the giant Vafþrúðnir). Tolkien was not a hack, you see, and by that I mean he didn't throw out whatever he could to keep chugging along. He lived and breathed the world he was creating, conceiving entire languages for its fictional inhabitants, and tying in its happenings to ancient myths. The degree of care gives scenes like this a kind of weight the reader can sense, even if they don't entirely know what's happening behind the curtain.
We may not all be able to devote as much time to our fantasies as Tolkien did—but we can learn to appreciate craft and dedication when we see it, a cause I hope to have contributed to today.
Until next time.
—Floyd
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