THE HOBBIT Audiobook

JRR Tolkien The Hobbit Audiobook 🎧

Bilbo Baggins lives a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely venturing beyond the pantry of his hobbit-hole at Bag End. But his happiness is shattered when the wizard Gandalf and a band of 13 dwarves appear on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on a voyage ‘there and back again.’ They want to plunder Smaug the Magnificent’s treasure hoard, a massive and ferocious dragon…

Since The Hobbit was published in 1937, critics have debated whether the book is a fantasy, a fairy tale, a fable, a romance, an epic, or a novel. Classifying the book is one way of discussing its strengths and shortcomings and comprehending its enduring popularity. The Hobbit appears to be about much more than its surface storyline, yet Tolkien was insistent that it was not an allegory, and that he preferred history, whether actual or imagined, to allegory. The novel is not in the tradition of the great realistic novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; instead, it is more akin to the concept of a romance, a form that allows for the implausible and even the supernatural. It is arguably more correct to refer to it as fiction and to consider it a fabricated history that incorporates the incomprehensible.

The novel is basic in many ways, yet it also portrays the complexities of human experience in others. Its simplicity is reflected in the location, which is primarily rural. There are no cities or significant industries, with the exception of Lake-town and the Dale ruins. Even when the dwarves flourished in Dale, their trade was a craft rather than manufacturing in the modern, technological sense. Although the year is designated by the months of the Julian calendar and Yule tide is observed, the story takes place long ago, in an unspecified time. Bilbo smokes a pipe and serves coffee and tea, as well as English goodies like seedcake, scones, and mince pies, but he is a hobbit who lives in a hole in the earth, travels with dwarves, and meets Goblins, elves, and a dragon on a voyage through a terrain that is not at all English.

Despite the fact that Bilbo is given a genealogy that explains his character’s problems and there are references to his deceased parents, there is no sexuality in The Hobbit. In truth, no female hobbits appear in The Hobbit. Although romantic love does not prevalent, the male characters demonstrate camaraderie, devotion, and respect. In this sense, the story is very similar to traditional adventure stories for boys, such as Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, and very different from traditional English novels that ended in happy marriages — even novels that were also about questing boys, such as Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and David Copperfield.

The Hobbit contains magical power, but not much heavenly power. Readers have noted that Tolkien gives a highly full, cohesive view of the universe in this book and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, yet there is no feeling of a Judeo-Christian God — or any god — presiding over it. While there is no depiction of religious worship, keep in mind that Tolkien’s Catholicism was incredibly important to him. Furthermore, the quest idea that serves as the foundation for The Hobbit has typically included at least one spiritual component. Despite, or perhaps because of, this, The Hobbit shows a coherent moral framework in which good and evil are equivalent with easily known human virtues and crimes, characters have free will, and good ultimately triumphs.

Tolkien composed The Hobbit to combine two literary interests: English mythology and stories for his children. His scholarly background in ancient literature and languages had prepared him completely for the old northern myths and epics, such as Beowulf and the Icelandic sagas. He began creating a mythology of England in the 1920s; he was discouraged from releasing it, and although he continued to work on it throughout his life, The Silmarillion was not published until after his death (1977), edited by his son. The stories he began telling his young children for basic enjoyment evolved over time and were overlaid with details and patterns from the old books he understood so well. These are the stories that were modified and released as The Hobbit, so it’s not surprising that they contain clues and echoes of material that was not within Tolkien’s conscious control.

Tolkien’s lifelong interest in languages is visible in The Hobbit as well. The book starts with an explanation of runes, the ancient northern writing system. Furthermore, the names of places and characters, despite being wholly made up, sound like true ancient northern languages. Tolkien developed languages as a student and even wrote poems in some of them; his invented languages have a cohesive grammar and grammatical structure that makes them fairly plausible. His linguistic prowess is on display in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, where he used invented languages far more frequently.

Tolkien is frequently credited with revitalizing and popularizing the fantasy genre. C. S. Lewis, an old acquaintance from Oxford, was most likely affected by him when writing his science fiction novels and his fantasy series for children, The Chronicles of Narnia.

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JRR Tolkien Bio

JRR Tolkien is a world-renowned fantasy author. He is most known for writing the trilogy ‘The Lord of the Rings» and ‘The Hobbit.»

JRR Tolkien: Who Was He?

J.R.R. Tolkien was a fantasy author and academic from England. As a child, Tolkien moved to England and attended Exeter College. He wrote the popular fantasy novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy while teaching at Oxford University. The works have a large international following and have been made into award-winning blockbuster films.

Childhood and Family

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein, South Africa, to Arthur Tolkien and Mabel Suffield Tolkien. After Arthur died of rheumatic illness complications, Mabel moved to the small hamlet of Sarehole in Birmingham, England, with four-year-old Tolkien and his younger brother, Hilary.

Mabel died in 1904, and the Tolkien boys were taken to live with a relative and in boarding homes in Birmingham, with a Catholic priest acting as guardian. Tolkien went on to get a first-class degree in Anglo-Saxon and Germanic languages and classic literature at Exeter College.

First World War

Tolkien enlisted as a lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers and served in World War I, making sure to continue writing as well. He fought in the Battle of the Somme, which resulted in heavy casualties, and was eventually discharged owing to illness. In 1916, he married Edith Bratt while still serving in the army.

Tolkien continued his language studies by joining the faculty of the University of Leeds in 1920 and eventually became a professor at Oxford University. While there, he founded The Inklings, a writing club that included C.S. Lewis and Owen Barfield. While marking a paper at Oxford, he also suddenly composed a short phrase about «a hobbit.»

‘The Hobbit» and ‘The Lord of the Rings»

The Hobbit, an award-winning fantasy tale about the little, furry-footed Bilbo Baggins and his adventures, was published in 1937 and was considered a children’s book, but Tolkien would later declare that the book wasn’t initially intended for children. He also drew over 100 pictures to accompany the story.

Tolkien constructed the work that would come to be considered his masterpiece over the years, while working on scholastic publications — The Lord of the Rings trilogy, largely influenced by ancient European mythology, with its own sets of maps, lore, and languages.

Tolkien published The Fellowship of the Ring in 1954, followed by The Two Towers and The Return of the King in 1955, completing the trilogy. The volumes provided readers with a rich literary goldmine filled with elves, goblins, talking trees, and other strange creatures, featuring characters such as the wizard Gandalf and the dwarf Gimli.

While The Lord of the Rings had its detractors, many reviewers and waves upon waves of ordinary readers fell in love with Tolkien’s universe, propelling the novels to global bestseller status, with admirers founding Tolkien clubs and studying his imaginary languages.

Death

Tolkien withdrew from teaching in 1959 and went on to write an essay and poetry collection, Tree and Leaf, as well as the fantasy story Smith of Wootton Major. Tolkien died on September 2, 1973, at the age of 81, after the death of his wife Edith in 1971. He left behind four children.

Legacy and New Modifications

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series are among the best-selling books in the world, with tens of millions of copies sold. Director Peter Jackson transformed The Lord of the Rings trilogy into a very successful, award-winning trilogy of films starring Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood, Cate Blanchett, and Viggo Mortensen, among others. From 2012 to 2014, Jackson also directed a three-part Hobbit film adaptation starring Martin Freeman.

Tolkien’s son Christopher edited numerous unfinished works after his father’s death, notably The Silmarillion and The Children of Hrin, which were released posthumously. The Art of the Hobbit was published in 2012 to commemorate the novel’s 75th anniversary by exhibiting original artwork by Tolkien.

To demonstrate Tolkien’s continued popularity, internet retail and entertainment juggernaut Amazon announced in November 2017 that it had bought the TV rights to the book series. The business stated plans to «explore new storylines preceding Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring,» with the possibility of a spinoff series, enticing fans with the promise of a prequel to the familiar adventures of Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, and the rest.