Re: The Hobbit, after all these years

randall.m@gmail.com said:
> It makes for a great sequence in which the Trolls are perfectly
> comprehensible characters. One could argue whether Tolkien giving them
> Cockney accents was a way of putting down the poor of his time, or whether
> it was meant to make us sympathise with the trolls . . . just poor working
> blokes out of the hills looking for something that isn't mutton to eat.

Good question and I have no idea. I don't know what Tolkien's politics were
like, so I don't even know what was likely. I'll choose to believe your
second option because I didn't realize they had Cockney accents and I really
like the idea that the trolls are regular guys just out in the hills.

Given the treasure stored up in their cave, I'm not sure I'd include them in
the ranks of the working poor.


> In Tolkien's sources--the Elder Edda, I believe, though it's been a
> while--Gandalf was a dwarf's name, so in the first drafts he may actually
> have been a dwarf, not a wizard at all.

That's interesting. I thought I'd heard that "alf" was a particle that
meant "elf".


> These are definitely kids' elves, not the epic warriors that we meet
> later. But then, the Hobbits are really just glorified kids at this point.

Glorified kids that smoke and drink and prefer to live the comfortable,
carefree life.

Maybe they're teenagers.


> Randall (this *is*, though, the book that has led to millions of people
> misspelling the plural of "dwarf")

"davies"?

moonlight.aileen@gmail.com said:
> Since a good friend of mine bought midnight premiere tickets for us,
> this sounds like a great idea!

Cool! Lucky you to get to the premiere.

Other than the "midnight" and "premiere" parts, that's exactly why I'm
reading it now.


Another thing about Gandalf. I'm finding it impossible to not hear Ian
McKellan's voice speaking Gandalves' dialog.


gwynhefar@gmail.com said:
> I know it's not correct, but it just seems more consistent: one wharf,
> two wharves; one scarf, two scarves; one dwarf, two dwarves. Not that
> English is exactly known for it's consistency :)

I now have an image of wharf dwarfs down on the piers, unloading cargo
from ships. That'd make them stevedwarves.

Wayne