ON HOBBITS… AND ADULT READERS

 

     Can one profitably read The Hobbit as an adult?  C.S. Lewis definitely thought so; in his (anonymous[1]) review for The Times (8 October 1937), he described it as “that kind of children’s book which can be read and […] re-read by adults”.[2]  However, as “there are dwarfs[3] and dwarfs”,[4] so there are readers and readers.  Lewis does make mention of “the right reader” to whom Tolkien’s secondary world will become indispensable.[5]  Indeed, in a letter to Arthur Greeves dated 4 February 1933, Lewis – who had been reading The Hobbit in ms. form – wonders whether the story, which is just the kind he would have loved to read around the age of 18, will succeed with modern children.[6]  In his essay “On Fairy-Stories”, Tolkien takes considerable pains to emphasize that such tales are not (primarily/exclusively) for children, though children often do enjoy them in a manner appropriate to their level of understanding (not “inferior” to that of adults, but as yet undeveloped and in need of being challenged).[7]

     A second question follows on from the first: what was Tolkien’s intended readership for The Hobbit?  There is a certain ambiguity in the evidence.  Around the time of publication in 1937, Tolkien seemed eager to refute claims that his story was primarily intended for children.  In response to the publisher’s blurb on the jacket-flap claiming that the manuscript had been “tested” both on his own four children “in nursery days” and on those of friends, Tolkien sent Mr. Unwin a letter in order to clarify that it was only his eldest child (aged 13) to whom the story had initially appealed.  The overall tone of the letter (described by its author as an “essay”), in which Tolkien nitpicks at almost every detail of the blurb, betrays (I believe) his profound annoyance at the implication that The Hobbit belongs in the nursery (Tolkien insisted that his readings of the ms. to his children had taken place in his study).[8]  However, a few decades after the appearance in print of The Hobbit, Tolkien seems to have revised his initial appraisal of his first published “tale” (cf. n. 10 below). 

     All the evidence seems to indicate that during his first seven years as professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, Tolkien was not only working on The Hobbit (as well as several novellas), but also formulating his own theory of “fairy-story”, reflected in his 1939 Lang lecture.[9]  In this scenario, The Hobbit becomes a marker along the journey of Tolkien’s understanding of both the nature of a genuine fairy-story and the relevance of Faërie to people of all ages as he wrestled to (sub)create what would turn out to be a new genre.[10]

     Back to (a form of) our initial question.  Taking into consideration, on the one hand, both Jack’s early enthusiasm and Tollers’ early defensiveness, and, on the other, Tolkien’s later reticence to consider The Hobbit as being “for adults”, how should a 21^st-century (Christian)[11] adult read this story?  As far as Tolkien was concerned, judgments as to which stories should be considered “for children” and indeed, those concerning what children can/not comprehend, consist of value judgments and are thoroughly moral in character.[12]  Tolkien implies that if children seem to enjoy fairy-stories more than adults, it may be because they have less weighing on their conscience.[13]  The Hobbit is in many ways a “coming-of-age”[14] story (though, biologically speaking, Bilbo is far from being “a child”).  Bilbo undergoes a process of personal/spiritual growth, as he embarks on his hero’s journey and manifests his “Took” side.  His latent potential is developed and employed in favour of a mission whose ultimate significance is lost on him.  And yet Bilbo plays his part, and thus grows in virtue and wisdom (cf. Lk. 2.40, 52).  Indeed, one might consider hobbits to be a prime example of the childlike humility and “idealistic”[15] heroism required to live a faithful life.  So, to answer our question – if an adult desires to grow in holiness, to “grow up” into godliness, then yes, The Hobbit is indeed for them.

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[1] Zaleski, Philip & Carol Zaleski, The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings, New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2016 [2015], pp. 208-09.

[2] Cf. Lewis, C.S. Image and Imagination (ed. Walter Hooper), New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 97.

[3] In his review, Lewis – following all other reviewers – rendered “dwarfs” what Tolkien had rendered “dwarves”: cf. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, New York: HarperCollins, 2006 [1981], pp. 23-24, 31.

[4] Lewis, C.S. Image and Imagination, op. cit., p. 95.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Quoted in Zaleski, Philip & Carol Zaleski, The Fellowship, op. cit., p. 202; cf. Lewis’ dedicatory note to Lucy Barfield in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: “some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again”: New York: HarperCollins, 2005 [1950, 1978].  Also, cf. Lewis’ depiction of Eustace Scrubb who had “read only the wrong books” which were “weak on dragons”: idem. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, New York: HarperCollins, 1994 [1952, 1980], p. 87.

[7] Cf. Tolkien, J.R.R.  “On Fairy-Stories” in Tree and Leaf, London: HarperCollins, 2001 [1964, 1975, 1988], pp. 33-46.  Indeed, Tolkien insists that those children who have a proclivity to write tend not to write fairy-stories (“not an easy form”), but rather beast-fables: Ibid., p. 76.  Cp. C.S. Lewis’ account of his childhood “Animal-Land”: Surprised by Joy: The Shape of my Early Life, New York: HarperOne, 2017 [1955], pp. 4-5.

[8] The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, pp. 20-22; though perhaps what the Zaleskis refer to as “the endless stream of tales Tolkien invented to beguile his restless boys” and their claim that for The Hobbit, “composing for his own children proved to be…a sine qua non” might somewhat nuance Tolkien’s account of his perception of his first major published story: Zaleski, Philip & Carol Zaleski, The Fellowship, op. cit., p. 202; though the (as usual, lengthy) gestation period of The Hobbit coincided with the founding of first, the Kolbitar and then, the Inklings, there is no conclusive evidence that The Hobbit was shared with either group prior to publication: cf. Glyer, Diana Pavlac, Bandersnatch: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings, Kent: Black Squirrel Books, 2016 [2007], pp. 11-20.

[9] Tolkien was awarded the Rawlinson & Bosworth professorship in 1925; Lewis read the ms. of The Hobbit in 1932, and the story was finally published in 1937 (typical Tolkien!).  Cf. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, pp. 13-14.  An expanded version of Tolkien’s 1939 Lang lecture was finally published in 1947, and re-printed (with editions) in 1964 and yet again in 1983.

[10] In a letter to W.H. Auden dated 7 June 1955, Tolkien claims that The Hobbit was “unhappily really meant…as a ‘children’s story’”; he goes on to bemoan the “sillinesses of manner” in the tale that “intelligent children” will discern as such.  Tolkien says that he believes the story was tried out on Rayner Unwin, his publisher’s 10-year-old son: The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, p. 215; the tale was indeed tried out on Rayner, who, in a review of his own, affirmed that it “should appeal to all children between the ages of 5 and 9”!  Cf. Zaleski, Philip & Carol Zaleski, The Fellowship, op. cit., pp. 207-08.  Indeed, Tolkien stated in a 1961 letter that while he regretted much about The Hobbit as belonging to the “contemporary delusions about fairy-stories and children” which he had raged against in his Lang lecture, and that he considered the LOTR to embody the principles he set out in “On Fairy-Stories”: The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, pp. 309-10.  Cf. also Michelson, Paul E. “The Development of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Ideas on Fairy-Stories” Inklings Forever 8 (2012) https://web.archive.org/web/20160617103045/https://library.taylor.edu/dotAsset/fae57f81-7b64-4203-8443-b764ca8535bb.pdf (accessed September 5, 2023), p. 3, passim.

[11] How a non-religious-believer should read The Hobbit may be the topic of a future “long paper”.

[12] Cf. Tolkien, J.R.R.  “On Fairy-Stories”, pp. 43-6.

[13] He quotes G.K. Chesterton’s 1922 essay “On Household Gods and Goblins” to that effect: Ibid., p. 44; cf. Chesterton, The Coloured Lands, 1938, p. 195.

[14] Cf. Pearce, Joseph, Bilbo’s Journey: Discovering the Hidden Meaning of The Hobbit, Charlotte: Sait Benedict Press, 2012, pp. 51-64.

[15] Cf. Ibid., pp. 121-25.