Deep roots are not reached by the frost as Tolkien fans rush to the defense of their favorite fantasy adventure involving a Hobbit, a band of Dwarves, a very live Dragon, and treasures of a far-off land.
The Hobbit may pale in comparison to The Lord of the Rings and its grandeur of prose, but even from a thematic standpoint, the unassuming adventures of a Halfling in search of adventure and dragon gold in 1937 were what kickstarted the whole Arda legendarium in the first place.
What’s more, to say that The Hobbit is only relevant in the shadow of Tolkien’s later work would be a huge underselling of one of the best-selling books of all time, a timeless classic that has ever been a subject of scholarly debate and academic interpretation.
Which is probably why some of its most unfailing gatekeepers have been rushing to the story’s defense after someone commits the greatest heresy imaginable by putting The Hobbit in a section of a book store superciliously named: “Books we pretend we’ve read.”
Some folks are taking the blasphemous action too hard and actually resorting to irony to question today’s literary landscape.
Besides, who said that people don’t like to read The Hobbit?
Someone out there clearly doesn’t care much about Bilbo Baggins and his fantastical tale.
If anything, The Hobbit is a kind of book snobs would actually scoff at, considering it to be “childish fantasy content.”
Let’s say, just for the sake of the argument, that you indeed possess a copy of The Hobbit that has been sitting on your bookshelf for far too long. Does that mean you’re never going to read it? Or worse, pretend that you have? The internet clearly doesn’t seem to think that’s the case.
Besides, as a great author once said, “not all those who wander are lost.”
