Hobbit 19

h/t SNL

Hobbit As Graphic Novel

THE HOBBIT (Graphic Novel), by J.R.R. Tolkien by Random House Publishing Group

Privyet! Bilbonigyeh Bagginseroffsky

Bilbo unsuccessfully declining to adventure with some crazy ass wizard. Image credit: Shore Leave Media

Leave it to the Soviets to make the Hobbit look like it's been sanitized of bourgeois extravagance, like good acting, directing, sets, presentation, &c., &c.

I didn't quite know what to make of this piece when I came across it, until I read the description. The subtitles you're looking at are not exactly accurate, though perhaps they capture the spirit of the Soviet version - my Russian's a little rusty, so I'll have to take the poster's word for it when he says in the comments:

1985 Soviet version of The Hobbit. Subtitled in English by me for the Russian-impaired.

The me in question here is Greg Steele, who is a humorist and cartoonist. He is the creator of These Bears Are Happy.   Check it out and get as happy as those bears... unless you'd really rather keep smoking weed...

Keeping up with the Hobbitses

A skeptical hobbit. Image credit: Shore Leave Media

We so often come to works of art after they are completed. Perhaps we imagine the author sitting down in an isolated spot, wetting his pencil and beginning to write. Completing chapter one, then two, then three and so on.

But this is almost never how a work of art is constructed. Each creator has his or her process. Perhaps they stand on their head for 10 minutes before every writing jag. Maybe they like to write about each character first, and then create a narrative around them. Sometimes the exact opposite, deriving characters from the scenarios in the author's mind.

It is fascinating to take an inside look into that process and to observe moments of impasse. Tolkien left a wealth of letters and communiques that detail his blocks - exacerbated no doubt by the prodding of his editors. After the success of The Hobbit, they were eager to see a sequel. But of course, just as Gd almighty gave Adam free will, so too an author cannot coerce his creations to be who they are not. On 24 July 1938, Tolkien wrote:

The sequel to the Hobbit has remained where it stopped. It has lost my favour, and I have no idea what to do with it. For one thing the original Hobbit was never intended to have a sequel – Bilbo 'remained very happy to the end of his days and those were extraordinarily long': a sentence I find an almost insuperable obstacle to a satisfactory link. For another nearly all the 'motives' that I can use were packed into the original book, so that a sequel will appear either 'thinner' or merely repetitional. For a third: I am personally immensely amused by hobbits as such, and can contemplate them eating and making their rather fatuous jokes indefinitely; but I find that is not the case with even my most devoted 'fans' (such as Mr Lewis, and ? Rayner Unwin). Mr Lewis says hobbits are only amusing when in unhobbitlike situations.  

Sitting at the end of that journey, we know of course that the 'sequels' in Middle Earth were far grander in scale than simple hobbits. Bilbo passes the adventure torch to the next generation, and Tolkien preserves his fidelity to his amusing Hobbit folk.

I especially love the heartache Tolkien constantly communicates in his letters, that the world at large doesn't get his work the way he does. He would be indefinitely amused by tales of daily life in the shire, a Hobbit Reality Show. But the public longs for hobbits in 'unhobbitlike' situations.

Reminds me of a joke - Q: how man television executives does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Does it have to be a light bulb?

The Greatest Adventure

My mind often conflates Biblical imagery with Tolkien imagery. And its not wonder. The Bible is the best selling book of all time (despite it actually being a couple dozen separate books smushed into a single volume) and The Lord of the Rings is one of the top three selling books of all times (despite it actually being six books conflated into a single narrative)

It's no wonder then that Glen Yarborough, in the introduction to the 1977 animated version of The Hobbit, wrote and sings a song called, "The Greatest Adventure." Here it is:

Tolkien Hated Disney

This man felt a "heartfelt loathing" for all Disney productions

Ever wonder why Disney never made a Hobbit movie? It seems right up their alley, with all the orphans and magic and fantastic narratives.

Turns out Tolkien hated Disney. Not just hated, but felt a loathing for everything they produced. And that was during the Golden Age of Disney in the late thirties, early forties.

Here's the quote from Tolkien's letters. The letter was referring to the American publication of The Hobbit and discussed Tolkien's thoughts on what kind of illustration's belonged in the book.

It might be advisable, rather than lose the American interest, to let the Americans do what seems good to them – as long as it was possible (I should like to add) to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing).

The Hobbit as Bildungsroman

As a child, the books I most frequently read were the books of the Bible and their associated commentaries and the books by J.R.R. Tolkien and their associated commentaries.

Bilbo Smoking Weed

The former readings focused primarily on the Pentateuch and the Hebrew legends surrounding the narratives in the Pentateuch, called Midrashim, and the latter included everything from "The Hobbit" to "The Silmarillion" to "The Shaping of Middle-Earth," a tome edited by Christopher Tolkien that centered on the maps found in the elder Tolkien's notebooks. I have always been fascinated at how closely Tolkien's stories mirror those of the Bible, particularly in the case of Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Saul and David.

As Joseph Campbell has so effectively shown, all stories, from the Bible to The Office, draw from the same format, known as the monomyth, also known as The Hero's Journey.

Bilbo fending off Golum in a gloomy cave

Bilbo's journey, of course, follows this format as well. A wealthy, comfortable, middle-aged man who is content to spend his days eating cakes and smoking weed (Longbottom Leaf being particularly potent), is unwittingly thrust on an adventure in which he must become valiant and brave, and just a little bit treacherous, as all successful heroes must be in order to vanquish their foes.


I am very much excited therefore, to see Peter Jackson's interpretation of this wonderful tale as soon as it is fully released in theaters this week.

Thranduil, the Elf King of Mirkwood.

With the new Hobbit movie from Peter Jackson debuting in full release this week, I was reminded of the old Hobbit movie I grew up watching. It was produced in 1977 and was animated. John Huston was the voice of Gandalf and Otto Preminger was the voice the elvenking.

Otto Preminger as the Elvenking

 

For those who are unfamiliar with Middle-Earth lore, the Elvenking in The Hobbit story is Legolas's father, Thranduil. In the Hobbit books he is portrayed as wicked and cruel, an obstacle that Bilbo must overcome using the magic of the One Ring. He looks ugly and misshapen.

But the truth is that the Elvenking is a hero, a hardened warrior who spent hundreds of years withstanding and isolating the Witch King, acting as a bulwark against Sauron's evil in Mirkwood, especially during the War of the Ring. In appearance, as I'm sure Peter Jackson's film will depict, the Elvenking will look as all elves should. Beautiful and tall, bright and terrible as the dawn.