ach_sss_no

Livebloggy notes while reading The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, chapter 10. These are notes I'm making in the process of assembling a proper chapter-by-chapter review of the book. There was some indication of interest in seeing a liveblog-style thing when I asked on Tumblr, so I'm posting my notes.

Bilbo rounds a bend in the river and gets his first, dramatic look at the Lonely Mountain!

The Lonely Mountain! Bilbo had come far and through many adventures to see it, and now he did not like the look of it in the least.

Bilbo overhears the raftmen and finds out that the road the dwarves were originally on hits a dead end nowadays, and this river is now, in fact, the only way to the mountain, and Thranduil owns it and would never have let them use it normally, so this ridiculous comedy of errors [affectionate] is the only way to get to their destination! Who’d’a’thunk (how are they getting back, by the way?…)

They arrive at Lake-town, a nifty little place with buildings in the lake on wooden piles.

The barrels are deposited and under cover of darkness Bilbo lets the dwarves out of their kennels, I mean barrels. The first thing Tolkien does is compare Thorin to a neglected dog.

It seems that it is now Bilbo’s turn to walk into someone else’s home and…..

S u m m o n t h e d w a r v e s

It was Thorin, but you could only have told it by his golden chain, and by the colour of his now dirty and tattered sky-blue hood with its tarnished silver tassel. It was some time before he would be even polite to the hobbit.

"Well, are you alive or are you dead?" asked Bilbo quite crossly.

*cough* before you let him out of the barrel to check, he was both

By the way, IIRC the Rankin Bass movie abbreviated this entire section by having Thorin pop out of the barrel while it’s still being taken off the boat and all the workers are still there, and he goes ‘I HAVE RETURNED’ and faints on the pier. It was cute and amusing and efficient. The original version is a liiiiittle more dignified

Fili and Kili, however, who were young (for dwarves) and had also been packed more neatly with plenty of straw into smaller casks, came out more or less smiling, with only a bruise or two and a stiffness that soon wore off.

"I hope I never smell the smell of apples again!" said Fili. "My tub was full of it. To smell apples everlastingly when you can scarcely move and are cold and sick with hunger is maddening. I could eat anything in the wide world now, for hours on end-but not an apple!"

With the willing help of Fili and Kili,

That’s really endearing honestly. I don’t think I mentioned it, but Fili (or Kili? both?) was also incredibly helpful back in the spider fight. They go high on my dwarf tier list.

In the meanwhile what next?"

"I suggest Lake-town," said Bilbo, "What else is there?" Nothing else could, of course, be suggested;

Bilbo: We can go into this town that’s right here or we can jump back in the barrels and back in the lake. What do you think comes next, Thorin?

"And who are these?" he asked, pointing to Fili and: Kili and Bilbo.

"The sons of my father's daughter," answered Thorin, "Fili and Kili of the race of Durin, and Mr. Baggins who has travelled with us out of the West."

Thorin: And I am not explaining what a hobbit is. Your security clearance isn’t high enough ~~I don't know what he is either~~

"If you come in peace lay down your arms!" said the captain.

"We have none," said Thorin, and it was true enough: their knives had been taken from them by the wood-elves, and the great sword Orcrist too. Bilbo had his short sword, hidden as usual, but he said nothing about that.

Bilbo takes the approach of ‘it’s not illegal until someone finds out I’m doing it.’

Thorin goes into the town and announces himself. There’s an interesting political bobble because Thranduil’s guys are around and say Thorin was in jail yesterday, and the town mayor(?) called the Master doesn’t really want to make Thranduil angry. But the townspeople have a legend about the dwarves returning and get so excited the Master can’t kick them out.

Even Bilbo was given a seat at the high table, and no explanation of where he came in-no songs had alluded to him even in the obscurest way-was asked for in the general bustle.

He’s just here now don’t question it

For a while the dwarves enjoy the fuss being made over them in the town while Bilbo nurses a head cold and remains keenly aware that the dragon is still there and hasn’t been killed yet.

"Very well! We'll see! No treasure will come back through Mirkwood without my having something to say in the matter. But I expect they will all come to a bad end, and serve them right!" He at any rate did not believe in dwarves fighting and killing dragons like Smaug, and he strongly suspected attempted burglary or something like it which shows he was a wise elf and wiser than the men of the town

Thranduil: dwarves are all thieves and shams. This is fraud. If they do get their treasure out I’m taking some, by the way

Tolkien: This shows he was wiser than everyone in lake-town

But the Master was not sorry at all to let them go. They were expensive to keep, and their arrival had turned things into a long holiday in which business was at a standstill.

"Let them go and bother Smaug, and see how he welcomes them!" he thought

I don’t have much to say about this I just think it’s incredibly funny. It’s funnier because I know they win (and I know how they win)

After the rest and refueling period ends, everyone’s off to the mountain.

The only person thoroughly unhappy was Bilbo.

Bilbo being unhappy is not new, but I think this is the first time the dwarves haven’t backed him up.