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What makes The Hobbit such a seminal work in the fantasy genre? Is it the nine hours of over-budget, sensorially explosive movies by Peter Jackson? Nope. Is it a complex tale of multiple human kingdoms slaughtering each other for an Iron Throne with buckets of blood and guts and plenty of sex? Nope. Is it simply wonderful writing. As simple and boring as that. Does that mean that I was incredibly disappointed in the movie adaptation (not to say abortion)? Yep. Does that mean I don't love Game of Thrones (books and TV shows)? No, they are great too. But the seminal work, the Divine Comedy that created the language and inspiration for George R.R. Martin as Dante created Italian from the common vernacular in Florence and Ravenna, was The Hobbit. The book, even for a slow reader is most likely able to be finished in 1/3 the time that Peter Jackson spent telling the story in 70mm film. Unlike Peter Jackson's version, there are no orcs and the element of danger is more psychological than psychical: Bilbo Baggins is battling his fears and his provincialism and growing up. The Hobbit should be read as the Odyssey of Middle Earth - a voyage of self-learning and maturation that is more about the monsters in Bilbo's imagination than those encountered in his baptismal voyage into the unknown with Gandalf. Gandalf. Honestly, would there EVER have been a Dumbledore had there not been a Gandalf? Did any Tolkien reader NOT picture Gandalf when Rowlings talked about Dumbledorf in the first Harry Potter book?

Bilbo does encounter some monsters and even outsmarts Smaug the Dragon (wow, I mean what a perfect name for a dragon! More evocative than Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion in my opinion - and again would they even have existed had Smaug not preceded them?) and he saves Middle Earth before returning to the Shire. He is not the same person he was before leaving. He is Ulysses without a Penelope waiting for him (unless his pipe is secretly called Penelope in his expanded imagination or his Penelope is a symbol of his vast library in Rivendell).

In literature, there is nothing quite like the Hobbit in its simplicity and beauty and its symbolic voyage: we are of course introduced to the elves, the humans, the dwarves...but they are all on the outskirts of the story. The Hobbit is about one small hobbit fighting his greatest fears...and winning.

Fino's Tolkien Reviews:
The Hobbit
The Fellowship of the Ring (LOTR 1)
The Two Towers (LOTR 2)
The Return of the King (LOTR 3)
Lord of the Rings 1-3 - General Comments and Observations
Raymond Edward's Tolkien biography