{"id":615,"date":"2011-10-27T06:00:56","date_gmt":"2011-10-27T13:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=615"},"modified":"2011-10-22T11:09:41","modified_gmt":"2011-10-22T18:09:41","slug":"mark-reads-the-hobbit-chapter-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2011\/10\/mark-reads-the-hobbit-chapter-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Hobbit’: Chapter 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the fourth chapter of The Hobbit<\/em>, GODDAMN<\/em> A WHOLE LOT OF THINGS DIE. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read The Hobbit<\/em>.<\/p>\n

CHAPTER FOUR: OVER HILL AND UNDER HILL<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wow, I really liked this chapter. I’m doing my best to keep an open mind about this book and the way it’s written. That was very easy during chapter four, where Tolkien rapidly increases the action. It’s interesting the way the death of a whole lot of goblins is narrated in an almist sing-song, whimsical way, and it’s the first time I’ve felt this narration style totally sets The Hobbit<\/em> apart from other things I’ve read.<\/p>\n

We open with the painful, tiring journey beyond the Last Homely House. Tolkien does a fine job not only communicating the dangers of their trek, but showing us just how arresting this experience is for Bilbo:<\/p>\n

Now they could look back over the lands they had left, laid out behind them far below. Far, far away in the West, where things were blue and faint, Bilbo knew there lay his own country of safe and comfortable things, and his little hobbit-hole. He shivered.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This is a dynamic I’m fascinated by. It’s a combination of fear, lack of self-esteem, and a lack of experience. Again, Tolkien is not exaggerating when he says that Bilbo has never had an adventure before. It’s a literal statement, and Bilbo dwells constantly on comforting thoughts of what his fellow hobbits are getting up to without him there. Hell, do they even know he has gone anywhere? Bilbo was so suddenly thrust into this situation that he’s only now starting to cope with it. Even worse, it’s not like he has any sort of guarantee that this is a harmless little trip:<\/p>\n
Even the good plans of wise wizards like Gandalf and of good friends like Elrond go astray sometimes when you are off on dangerous adventures over the Edge of the Wild; and Gandalf was a wise enough wizard to know of it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
From here until the end of the chapter, Tolkien beautifully builds up the dread and tension, and then SWEET SUMMER CHILD, he delivers it. We start off with a thunder-battle. I misread it the first time; it’s not a thunderstorm, as we are familiar with, but a thunder-battle<\/em>:<\/p>\n
There they were sheltering under a hanging rock for the night, and he lay beneath a blanket and shook from head to toe. When he peeped out in the lightning-flashes, he saw that across the valley the stone-giants were out, and were hurling rocks at one another for a game, and catching them, and tossing them down into the darkness where they smashed among the trees far below, or splintered into little bits with a bang.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
WHY IS THIS THE COOLEST IDEA EVER. Not only do I love the mental image of it as well as the explanation for thunder, but Tolkien NEVER BRINGS UP THESE GIANTS AGAIN. They are just an established part of this mountain range and it’s NO BIG DEAL that GIANTS ARE TOSSING AROUND ROCKS. See, this<\/em> is what I am beginning to like about fantasy novels. I love imaginative inventions such as these! (Or, to be sure I’m getting this right, these could be borrowed from mythology, and even then, I enjoy seeing those myths in action.)<\/p>\n
Even with stone-giants about, the weather is what truly gets Bilbo down. I can infer from this that the weather where Bilbo lives is not at all like this. It seems warm, cozy, and sunny, fully of hobbit-holes and giant trees providing necessary shade. And now the dude is on a narrow mountain pass, just a foot or two from instant death from a fall, rain and lightning plummeting from the sky. It’s so bad that even Thorin, the greatest dwarf alive, basically says this is bullshit and they need to find somewhere to get out of the rain. A GOOD IDEA, I’d say. So Fili and Kili are sent off scouting and return with news of a possible cave they can hideout in.<\/p>\n
“Have you thoroughly<\/em> explored it?” said the wizard, who knew that caves up in the mountains were seldom unoccupied.<\/p>\n
“Yes, yes!” they said, though everybody knew they could not have been long about it; they had come back too quick.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I like that Tolkien doesn’t make what happens a huge surprise; he instead feeds us doubt, and as I said before, it helps to build dread. So I knew at this point that there was no way that cave would be empty, so it became a matter of trying to figure out what new creature we’d be introduced to. Or perhaps it would be more trolls! TROLLS LIVE IN CAVES RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT.<\/p>\n
The entire group settles into the cave (rather quickly, I might add), getting comfortable and taking advantage of the dryness and the warmth, and it’s not long before they all drift off to sleep. Bilbo himself falls asleep last, somewhat tortured by a dream in which a crack in the cave wall grows and grows. And I don’t have any idea of why it happens this way, but I can’t imagine something creepier than dreaming this and then waking up suddenly TO SEE THAT IT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING<\/em>.<\/p>\n
And so, for the first time in The Hobbit<\/em>, SHIT GETS REAL. Because Bilbo wakes just in time to see the last pony disappear into the crack. Bilbo yells to wake the others and then GOBLINS POUR INTO THE CAVE. There are “six to each dwarf,” which is 78 goddamn goblins at once, and that is a terrifying thought, only made more so when the goblins grab all the dwarves and Bilbo, carrying them through the crack and sealing it behind them<\/em>. OH OKAY, COOL, DIDN’T KNOW YOU HAD THAT POWER, THAT’S COOL.<\/p>\n
I found it a bit weird that Tolkien, who over-explains nearly everything, doesn’t really apply much of a description to the goblins at all. We’re told they’re big and ugly, but that’s it. Is he relying on our familiarity with how they’re normally depicted here? My only fictional experience with goblins is in the Harry Potter<\/em> series, so is that what they look like? Why are they so\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.evil? I know that I hate using that word, but seriously, they are mean as hell<\/em>. They’re violent and cruel. In that sense, I know more about their behavior<\/em> than their physical appearance; perhaps that is intentional. I find out that they hate<\/em>. Yes, just that emotion in and of itself:<\/p>\n
They did not hate dwarves especially, no more than they hated everybody and everything, and particularly the orderly and the prosperous; in some parts wicked dwarves had even made alliances with them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So they’re just a hateful, violent species? That’s\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.okay. Kind of a one-dimensional villain, but it’s very early in this book. I’ll give this a chance.<\/p>\n
The dwarves and Bilbo, chained together in a line, are taken before the Great Goblin, charged with spying on the goblins. Thorin does his very best to try to assure them that this was just an accident, but dude. Seriously. Y’all hate each other and fought a war against one another. This cannot end well.<\/p>\n
And here is where I started thinking about how death works in fictional worlds. Back when they were all first taken, Gandalf managed to pop off a single spell and a few goblins dropped dead, and I was a bit taken aback by how nonchalant this was. But when the goblins discover that those ones hit by Gandalf’s spell are dead, the scene in the goblin cave erupts into total chaos, as Gandalf arrives and quickly becomes GANDALF THE GOBLIN SLAYER. Because JESUS GODDAMN CHRIST, so many goblins die. Hell, Gandalf kills the Great Goblin himself with a sword. Where did he get a sword? Dude can do magic. Just like\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I don’t know, turn their blood into pixie dust or something.<\/p>\n
But with so many goblins dead in a short time, I was a bit disappointed that not one<\/em> dwarf was even minimally hurt by this, that all of them managed to escape perfectly with the help of Gandalf. The rescue itself makes total sense, as does Gandalf possessing Goblin-cleaver. (Man, are the goblins really<\/em> that bad that you have to make cleavers specifically for them? What if they hate so much because no one stopped to give them a hug? WHAT ABOUT THAT, J.R.R. TOLKIEN.)<\/p>\n
Still, to be fair, the very end of the chapter impressed me. It’s my very first Hobbit<\/em> cliffhanger! Because even the great Gandalf is shown to underestimate the goblins when they’re able to sneak up behind them and grab Dori and Bilbo.<\/p>\n
Shit’s getting real, y’all. This is fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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