Lord of the Rings Challenge March Update

** Reminder this is all part of my reading the Lord of the Rings in chronological order as found here. There may be spoilers to either The Hobbit or the Trilogy in these posts. Read at your own peril.

The vast majority of this month focused on the Hobbit, so this will read more as a review of that novel rather than notes of my journey.

Most people know the story of The Hobbit. Gandalf marks Bilbo as a thief and a number of Dwarfs have a party at his house. There, they ask him to come on an adventure to steal back their homelands from the evil dragon Smaug. 

Bilbo travels with them, encountering trolls, goblins, Wood Elves, and of course the greed of anyone who suddenly finds themselves surrounded by gold. 

Thoughts: The first time I heard The Hobbit was when I was 8 or 9 and my dad read it to us before bed. I adored it. The next time I read it was sometime around high school when the Fellowship of the Ring came out. I listened to it once more via audiobook and then didn't touch any of the series again. So I was looking forward to it this time around.

I was really grateful to have some of the backstory as to why Gandalf A) came with them and B) kept disappearing. I know it's not crucial to the story, but I never really understood why he'd gone with the dwarfs in the first place. Understanding that part of his reasoning was to keep Smaug and Sauron from colluding together helped.

As to the story itself, I found it much sadder than I remember. I always forget about post Smaug. Up until high school, I thought the book ended with killing Smaug. The trolls, goblins, Rivendell, and the woodelves were way more impressionable to me than post Smaug. So when Thorin falls pray to the Dragongreed and the dwarfs bar anyone else from coming in, I just felt... depressed. And the deaths at the end affected me more than I remember. 

The books was interspersed with other material a couple of times, primarily the bit about the Quest for Erebor and a little more knowledge about the Rings of Power. 

After finishing the Hobbit, we learn of the rising of Denethor the II as Steward of Gondor, of Aragorn and some of his doings including becoming friends with Gandalf and becoming bethrothed to Arwen, and we learn a bit more about Saruman and the Palantiri at Orthanc.

Next month, I should be starting Fellowship of the Ring.

Finishing The Hobbit also means I've finished another book on my Classics Club list.