It’s time for me to reveal my favourite book of all time!
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
My Dad used to read this to me at bed-time when I was, I guess, about 8, that was the first time I heard the story. The first time I read it myself, I was about 16, but I didn’t finish it. I got up to the bit where Bilbo and Gollum challenge each other with riddles, he did such an awesome Gollum voice. No offence to Andy Serkis, but my Father’s version of Gollum’s voice was far superior. The reason for me only reading up to that point is because by that time my Dad had left to go off with another woman, and it brought back memories of him doting on me that really hurt. Why did he have to leave? Why couldn’t things go on like that forever?
I read it again just before Jane and I got together, about ten years ago, and that time I manned up and just read it – there was so much I had forgotten, and so much that my Father’s reading betrayed! It’s all about Bilbo, a quiet, ordinary Hobbit, who likes nothing more than not going on adventures – and his adventurous, emotional journey of self-discovery. It’s marvellous how different he seems at the end of the book compared to the beginning. When he kills the spider all by himself, without the dwarves, without the wizard, without any help from anyone, is a real turning point. And this made me realise… My Dad left because people change, circumstances change, nothing ever remains the same.
The way Tolkien tells the story (he originally wrote it for his children), it made a good bed-time story – but reading it yourself, well, you pick up a lot more inflections, you see the brackets, you love the reassuring, matter-of-fact voice of Tolkien coming through occasionally. When Gollum realises that he has lost his “Birthday present”, then slowly begins to realise the answer to Bilbo’s final “riddle”, the emotions and feelings pour out of the pages, it’s absolutely superb stuff.
I’m currently re-reading it again at the moment – it still seems as fresh and exciting as it ever did.
