The Hobbit

Just reread this in November 2023, and I've apparently written the following in the days gone by.

I'd read The Hobbit some ten years ago, went to see the film without any clear memory of the thing, and then just had to reread it again. What really struck me was how much fun this story really is. Sure, it has its meandering sections as do most travelogues. But especially the role of the narrator becomes the highpoint of the book for me: he pinpoints certain things, important or peripheral, breaks off the narrative to explain something else entirely, intervening in good humor.

The Hobbit is brilliantly redolent and entertaining literature on its own, not only as a kind of sidekick to The Lord of the Rings. I'm sure I'll revisit it many times in years to come.