# “l don’t much care for The Hobbt...”



## Bellerophon (Mar 28, 2022)

In the foreword to ‘The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun’ Christopher Tolkien quotes from one of his father’s letters “i don’t much care for The Hobbit myself, preferring my own mythology...”

Was that his considered opinion, do you think, or just an off the cuff remark?


----------



## grendel (Mar 28, 2022)

I suspect - not being a writer myself - that many successful authors look back at some of their earlier works and cringe a little. Personally I wouldn't put The Hobbit in that category, but that's me.


----------



## Squint-eyed Southerner (Mar 28, 2022)

It's a bit hard to see now, as The Hobbit has long been part of Middle-earth "canon", that it wasn't originally intended to be, by the author, even if elements of the mythology "crept in", to use his words. Only when the publishers asked for a sequel did it become incorporated into the legendarium, via LOTR, leading, as he recognized, to some conflicts which he later attempted to smooth over.

Another "problem" with the story that he later regretted was its tone of talking down to his child readers, something he noted in at least a couple of letters.


----------



## Halasían (Mar 28, 2022)

Is that why he released a ‘revised’ Hobbit in 1951?


----------



## Squint-eyed Southerner (Mar 28, 2022)

Sure. The original ring story couldn't possibly remain as it was.


And of course there was the attempt at a major revision in the 60s, which he gave up as a lost cause.


----------



## Halasían (Mar 28, 2022)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> And of course there was the attempt at a major revision in the 60s, which he gave up as a lost cause.


Sort of like pounding a square peg into a round hole.


----------



## Olorgando (Mar 29, 2022)

Bellerophon said:


> Was that his considered opinion, do you think, or just an off the cuff remark?


Part of the reason for JRRT's comment is that he more or less adhered to the conventional fairy-tale canon in "The Hobbit", something that he quite firmly rejected at the latest in his essay "On Fairy-Stories", originally given as the Andrew Lang lecture at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, on 8 March 1939. What he most vehemently rejected was the conventional-canon notion that fairy stories were only for (young) children - he'd been working on LoTR almost two years by then - and found the intrusive narrator of "The Hobbit", so often "talking down" to his readers, to be its gravest defect.


----------



## HALETH✒🗡 (Mar 29, 2022)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> Only when the publishers asked for a sequel did it become incorporated into the legendarium, via LOTR, leading, as he recognized, to some conflicts which he later attempted to smooth over.


When Tolkien decided to edit "The Hobbit", he claimed that it had been Bilbo who misinformed the readers. Haha


----------



## Olorgando (Mar 29, 2022)

HALETH✒🗡 said:


> When Tolkien decided to edit "The Hobbit", he claimed that it had been Bilbo who misinformed the readers. Haha


The 1951 second edition of "The Hobbit" (to JRRT's surprise) incorporated changes he had sent to his publishers several years earlier, without receiving a reply. In other words, three years before LoTR was published ...

And of course there's the bit in Book Two, chapter II "The Council of Elrond" where Bilbo, called on by Elrond to relate his part in the quest to Erebor, states:

"But I will now tell the true story, and if some here have heard me tell it otherwise° - he looked sidelong at Glóin - "I ask them to forget it and forgive me. I only wished to claim the treasure as my very own in those days, and to be rid of the name of thief that was put on me. But perhaps I understand things a little better now."


----------



## Radaghast (Apr 26, 2022)

Halasían said:


> Is that why he released a ‘revised’ Hobbit in 1951?


He wanted to rewrite the book altogether but was dissuaded by a friend who said it would become something different from the book that readers loved. The main reason for the updated edition was that he had to rewrite "Riddles in the Dark" as well as a perhaps bit of nip and tuck here and there to fit in with _The Lord of the Rings_. 

In the original chapter, Gollum was really ready, if begrudgingly, to give Bilbo his magic ring and lead him out of the tunnels beneath the Misty Mountains. The chapter in the first edition was explained as being Bilbo's less-than-factual version of the story he told to others.


----------



## Thorin (Apr 27, 2022)

I'm wondering if part of Tolkien's dissatisfaction with The Hobbit was the inconsistencies it created in trying to factor it into his mythology as he was expanding it and further fleshing out the LoTR story. Stone giants, Beorn, Elrond being an 'Elf friend, not knowing where Gollum came from, among a number of things that don't gel with his creation myth or further expansion.


----------



## Olorgando (Apr 27, 2022)

grendel said:


> I suspect - not being a writer myself - that many successful authors look back at some of their earlier works and cringe a little. Personally I wouldn't put The Hobbit in that category, but that's me.


In at least one recorded instance, when JRRT revisited writings that he had earlier (in his youth?) had a positive reaction to, he found in age that he had revised his opinion. I'm talking about the genesis of "Smith of Wootton Major", published 1967, when JRRT was 75. The whole business had started when JRRT had been approached by Pantheon Books in late 1964 about writing a preface to a new edition of George MacDonald's "The Golden Key" (originally published in 1867). In Humphrey Carpenter's "Letters", in letter 262 JRRT replied to the publishers, already with a certain doubt that he could provide what was wanted. Ultimately, the new edition had to do without JRRT's preface, which had grown beyond any useful size for a preface to become "Smith of Wootton Major".

I'm not quite sure where in my "library" I read it, but I remember a comment about JRRT retaining his positive memories of (much) earlier readings *only* if he didn't re-read them in later age ...


----------



## Squint-eyed Southerner (Apr 27, 2022)

To Thorin's points, yes, all true, including Gandalf's seeming inability to read the runes on the Gondolin-swords -- highly unlikely.

As far as the ring story goes, I've mentioned it elsewhere, but Douglas A. Anderson notes in _The Annotated Hobbit _that Tolkien's statement in the prologue to LOTR:

_Now it is a curious fact that this is not the story as Bilbo first told it to his companions._

contradicts the Hobbit text, and points out that "Bilbo's dishonesty, of great importance in _The Lord of the Rings_, is nowhere explicitly present in _The Hobbit._"

A confusing state of affairs, exacerbated by Bilbo's apologetic preface to his story in "The Council of Elrond":

_'But I will now tell the true story, and if some here have heard me tell it otherwise' -- here he looked sidelong at Gloin -- 'I ask them to forget it and forgive me.'_

He _had_, in fact, told them the true story, in the chapter "Flies and Spiders":

_They had to have the whole vanishing business carefully explained, and the finding of the ring interested them so much that for a while they forgot their own troubles. _


----------



## Elthir (Apr 27, 2022)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> He _had_, in fact, told them the true story, in the chapter "Flies and Spiders":
> 
> _They had to have the whole vanishing business carefully explained, and the finding of the ring interested them so much that for a while they forgot their own troubles. _



Possibly I'm confoozed here . . . but the Ring is "found" in the false story as well.

In the initial (in-story) telling -- that is, soon after the escape from the Mountains -- Bilbo tells "everything" except for the finding of the Ring -- but the Ring as a "present" is present in this section in the 1937 edition.


----------



## Squint-eyed Southerner (Apr 27, 2022)

Elthir said:


> Possibly I'm confoozed here . . .


Me too!



Elthir said:


> the Ring is "found" in the false story as well.


It is? 😳



Elthir said:


> the Ring as a "present" is present in this section in the 1937 edition.


The "present" is present -- in the false story-- but what the present was wasn't present. At least that's how it's presented. But it would probably be best at present to read the relevant texts. Which I'm now far too thurily confused to do at the moment. Presently, perhaps. 

I guess I really should stop chewing on these electrical cords.


----------



## Elthir (Apr 27, 2022)

_Shocking_ that *Geoff* gave that advice free of . . . _charge_!

cough



Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> It is? 😳



Yes, Bilbo finds the Ring in both the true and false versions -- in the latter it's said that Gollum would give Bilbo a present, but Bilbo had already found the ring in any case . . . thus (first edition) Bilbo escapes the mountain tunnels and tells the Dwarves about the Riddle Game, including: *"So I asked for my present, and he went to look for it, and couldn't find it. ( . . . )"*

In _Flies and Spiders_, Bilbo (this time) includes the finding of the Ring. But the addition need not mean Bilbo had told the true story back when it happened -- and thus Bilbo's preface to the story in _The Council of Elrond_ (looking sidelong at Gloin).

🐾


----------



## HALETH✒🗡 (Apr 28, 2022)

grendel said:


> I suspect - not being a writer myself - that many successful authors look back at some of their earlier works and cringe a little. Personally I wouldn't put The Hobbit in that category, but that's me.


Sometimes "mature Tolkien" was in agreement with "young Tolkien". ⬇️

As for "The Hobbit", I suppose that the qoute about not caring about the book was caused by whispering of Tolkien's inner critic. I'm sure that actually he loved the story. Otherwise he wouldn't write the continuation. Moreover, "The Hobbit" has become the door (or the wardrobe) to Middle-Earth for many readers.


----------



## Squint-eyed Southerner (Apr 30, 2022)

Elthir said:


> _Shocking_ that *Geoff* gave that advice free of . . . _charge_!
> 
> cough
> 
> ...


So, if I'm plugged in to your thinking correctly, Bilbo reveals the ring-finding in "Flies", but still maintains Gollum promised it as his present, rather than the true "present" of conducting him out?

Hmm. Possible. I'm not sure it's a direct refutation of Anderson, but admit to currently alternating between the two poles.

Or maybe I just have my wires crossed! 🥴


----------

