The Hobbit and the Harp in the ICU

During our stay in the hospital, one day passed rapidly into another. I found reading difficult, as there were always people coming and going. Thankfully, I had brought my sketch pad and colored pencils. Unlike reading, where I would have to shut people out to concentrate, with sketching I could embrace the interruptions, listen in on the discussions around me, and truly be there for the family. 

Above all the nurses and ICU staff, one visit proved particularly memorable. A woman introduced herself as a volunteer, and asked if the patient would like to hear a little music. When my sick family member answered "Yes," she wheeled in a harp.

Yes, you read that right: a harp.

I've played the piano all my life, and heard all the instruments that people typically play in church. I've always listened to music at home, from records to tapes to today's Compact Discs. Yet I've never really grown accustomed to hearing someone play the harp. I believe it says in the Old Testament that David played the harp for King Saul, and that the music eased his ruler's troubled brow. I can imagine that. It's such an elegant instrument, and she played it beautifully. She may have only played for a few minutes, but I could have listened to her for hours. 

You know, in his novel The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien records that Thorin Oakenshield played the harp. I'm not sure where or how he carried it as he traveled, but he played it that night he and the other dwarves visited Bilbo's little home in Hobbiton. In fact, all the dwarves played their own instruments. I'm not sure what happened to all those musical instruments after that. I don't remember the dwarves ever playing them again during their journey. Maybe they had to trade them in to buy their provisions for their adventure. In any case, it's sad they lost those instruments, particularly Thorin's harp. I bet they would have escaped the elves in Mirkwood much more easily, or perhaps even won their friendship, had they played so beautifully for the elves as they did that night in Bilbo's house. Don't you agree?

Dragon Dave

Calling All Hobbits

Thirty-five years ago, a friend loaned me his copy of The Silmarillion. The book had recently come out, and I eagerly opened the hardcover volume, looking forward to taking a great journey alongside Bilbo Baggins, his nephew Frodo, or some other Hobbit, Dwarf, or Human hero. Imagine my surprise when I discovered this was a collection of stories, highly mythological or historical in nature. Instead of easily following the narrative, I found myself lost, bewildered, and bored. I closed the book, and ultimately returned it to my friend. It remains one of the few great Science Fiction or Fantasy books that I gave up on, and never finished.

For as long as he could remember reading, Tolkien claimed he had been writing stories about different peoples, their cultures, and inventing their myths, legends, and languages. Those stories would make up The Silmarillion, which apparently cover the First and Second Ages of Middle Earth. Last Saturday marked the One Hundred and Twenty-Third anniversary of Tolkien's birth. Had he not died, J.R.R. Tolkien would be now be older than Bilbo at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings, which occurs during the Third Age of Middle Earth. It seems a fitting time for me to pick this book up again, and give it another try. 

If, like me, you've always wanted to read to learn more about Middle Earth, why not pick up The Silmarillion and read it with me? I'd appreciate hearing your feedback as I undertake the demands of this dense tome. And if you've also had problems getting through the book, perhaps we can make better sense of it together. After all, neither Bilbo nor Frodo departed Hobbiton alone. Each had his faithful friends to travel with, and help make his journey more manageable and enjoyable. I'd be honored to have another hobbit to travel alongside on this great adventure. Or even a Dwarf, or a Human hero.

Dragon Dave

J.R.R. Tolkien in the Classroom

Tuesday Tolkien

Despite earning high scores in English throughout grade school, and receiving an A and an A- for the first two halves of my thoroughly unnecessary High School English summer school class, my teacher gave me a B for a final grade.  As a result, the administration placed me in a lower track of English for my Freshman year.  This perplexed me, and angered my mother, who had been forced to rearrange her schedule to drive me to and from school during the summer.  Yet, we were assured that, while I was in a lower class, it would count the same academically as the higher track, and prepare me for the regular track of English in my Sophmore year.

Any unhappiness over the administration’s decision melted away as I got to know my new English teacher.  I evidently responded to her, as she gave me an A each semester, and Excellent for citizenship.  In my Freshman yearbook, she thanked me for my hard work, and encouraged me to keep doing my best.   And, just as the administration promised, I graduated to the normal English class for my Sophmore year.

In the same year I was enjoying my lower track English class, most of my other friends had the same instructor who had taught my summer school class.  The assignments he handed out looked harder than those I received, and for the literature portion of the class, he selected Animal Farm by George Orwell.  My English teacher chose a different novel: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.  So I got to read a book I was not only familiar with, but thoroughly loved.  When we got to the section where Bilbo talks with Smaug, she even brought in a big cake with a dragon on it to celebrate!  (Yes, knowing me, I probably had seconds.) What can I say?  Truly, all things work out for our ultimate good, right? 

Or at least, all things involving J.R.R. Tolkien, his novel The Hobbit, and those most fearsome, knowledgeable, and yet beloved creatures known as dragons.

Dragon Dave

Rusty: Daleks are more fearsome than dragons, right?
Pocket: Let's discuss this elsewhere, recruit.

Tolkien On Speed

Tolkien Tuesday

Maybe I was never great in English class.  Perhaps it was only all my book reports that impressed my Grade School teachers.  Or maybe I just had an off-day during my High School entry test.  Whatever the cause, the Elven Administrative Council that ruled my High School declared that I must take English in Summer School before beginning my Freshman year.

My main recollection from that class was that the instructor tried to teach us how to speed read.  He said that High School classes would be tough, and the quicker we could assimilate information, the better.  He encouraged us to bring our own books to read, and gave us tips on how to scan each sentence, and absorb the bulk of the content at speed.

As it happened, I was reading The Fellowship of the Ring, so I brought in my paperback, and applied my teacher’s instructions to J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel.  I remember reading about Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry leaving the Shire, and traveling toward the village of Bree.  Aside from one instance of running, my recollection is that the bulk of their journey occurs at a relatively easy pace.

Looking back now, the thought of speed-reading The Fellowship of the Ring, one third of the epic Tolkien spent over a dozen years writing, seems rather like running through a museum, then trying to deliver a detailed analysis of each piece of artwork.  But back then, I was young, and it was just another novel that I wanted to read.  And it was an assignment handed down from a High School teacher.  And no, he wasn't an orc.  (At least, I don't think he was).  At any rate, it would take decades for me to realize how monumental Tolkien’s work really was, and how his stories should be savored rather than skimmed.

Of course, in Peter Jackson’s movie “The Fellowship of the Ring,” Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry journey from the Shire to Bree occurs at frantic, breakneck speed, pursued all the way by the Nazgul (Ringwraiths).  The pace of that movie jarred so strongly with my recollections that I had difficulty accepting Jackson’s version.  Later, he brought out his extended version on DVD, and the additional scenes slowed down the overall pace, which allowed me to better appreciate the movie.

Warning: The next paragraph contains plot spoilers!

As with "The Fellowship of the Ring," Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug," the second part of his three-movie adaptation of The Hobbit, unravels at breakneck speed.  In violent contrast with my recollections of Bilbo packing the dwarves into barrels and sending them off on a fairly easy ride downriver, the dwarves ride down the river in open barrels, using swords and other weapons to fight a band of orcs that pursue them all the way.  Legolas and a band of Elven soldiers join in, at times even leaping from one dwarf's head onto another along the river as they shoot arrows at (or otherwise battle) the orcs.

I’m not criticizing Peter Jackson.  Even when he differs from scenes in the books, I think he’s trying to do homage to the depth and majesty of Tolkien's stories.  Still, I have to wonder if one of his High School teachers taught him to speed-read, and if so, how he reads Tolkien today.  For just as there's a difference between spending five seconds and five minutes staring at any given piece of art, there's a difference between Bilbo packing the dwarves inside barrels and sending them gently downriver, and the video game sensibilities of Jackson's adaptation.

Dragon Dave

The Link Between The Hobbit & Star Wars

Tolkien Tuesday

One weekend, back in 1977, a friend and his folks took me out to see “Star Wars” in the cinema.  I hadn’t visited my friend with any inkling that he and his parents would take me to my first movie.  It just happened, and in so doing, changed my life forever.  It impacted how I saw the world, what I judged as important, and the type of stories I henceforth sought out.  Still, when it came to storytelling, reading has always been (and I suspect, always will be) my first love.

My most vivid recollection from the Eighth Grade was all my book reports.  What I lacked in technical skills, I made up for by submitting reports on each book I read.  I can’t imagine what my English teacher thought, but she read each one I wrote, and gave me extra credit for all of them, even if she had only assigned us four or eight, and I turned in over twenty.  I can’t tell you all the novels I read that year, but I remember that my expectations of stories changed after seeing “Star Wars.”  Now every story had to be a little bolder, and possess more grandeur, than had previously been the case.

One of my friends was the Eighth Grade Class President, and I had helped him win his electoral campaign by making posters and hanging them around the school.  In addition to hanging out during the week, we occasionally spent weekends at his house, enjoying conversations and embarking on adventures together.  During those weekends, he loaned me a paperback: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.   Despite my suspicions to the contrary, he assured me I would enjoy it, and so I opened the cover and started read.  He was right.  Tolkien’s novel wasn’t anything like “Star Wars,” or the other books I had read, regardless of genre.  Yet I fell in love with his characters, his world of Middle Earth, and the way he wrote.  It’s the first time I can remember noticing how an author’s writing style could flow, could draw me into a story, and be beautiful in its own right. 

And so, my friend in the Eighth Grade surprised me with a story that met my heightened expectations of a novel, by handing me a book that was different in every way from the movie I loved.  But that’s the way of life, isn’t it?  So often, it’s the things we either stumble across, or others thrust into our hands—things we neither planned nor sought--that often prove the most important to us later on.  Just like “Star Wars.”

Incredibly, it would take thirty-five years until a filmmaker named Peter Jackson could make a movie version of The Hobbit capable of sitting comfortably beside “Star Wars.”  But that, as they say, is another blog post.

Dragon Dave

Guillermo del Toro is not Peter Jackson

Around the city block, we found a modern marque, and a door that led up the stairs to the box office.  It was neat to go out to a movie at seven o’clock in the evening for $3.    Of course, I had to pay $5.50 for a small soda, but if it keeps them in business...  

Another nice aspect of this second-run cinema in Hilo: no commercials or movie previews.  While I generally enjoy watching previews, the baker's dozen most cinema operators serve up can get annoying, and that's not a good frame of mind to begin a movie with.

"Pacific Rim" reminds me of the Godzilla-type movies I grew up watching on my small B&W TV.  Director Guillermo del Toro clearly intended to do more than just pay homage to the Japanese monster movie mini-genre.  If you've ever immersed yourself in a video game for hours, days, or weeks at a time, you're guaranteed to identify with, if not idolize, the specially trained pilots who operate the immense metal robots called Jaegers.  It's like Rock Em Sock Em Giant Robots Versus Ugly Giant Monsters, and you're inside one of the gigantic robots alongside the pilots, defending the last vestiges of civilization.  "Take this, you Godzilla wannabees!  Return to the Earth's Core from whence you came!"

Guillermo del Toro exhibits his unique visual style that makes all his movies memorable, as well as the quirky, hokey humor of the “Hellboy” movies.  One thing "Pacific Rim" doesn’t display, however, is any great depth of story.  Unlike "Avatar," in which the human soldiers deploy similar mechanical travel-and-fighting machines, you can’t apply reason or rationale to any aspect of his world.  For example, ask yourself this question: could a helicopter lift this second-run cinema and deploy it within minutes on a battlefield?  Now how about several helicopters that lift and carry one of these Jaegers--each as tall as a skyscraper--out to fight the monsters? Don't expect to leave the cinema wondering how del Toro created such a believable world.  This isn't an example of a storyteller suspending your disbelief by slowly introducing aspects of the Fantastic.  Still, if you can disengage your brain for two hours, you'll enjoy the movie!

As I said, I've seen several of del Toro's movies now, and even those I haven't seen for two-or-three years ("Pan's Labyrinth") or sixteen ("Mimic") left me with unforgettable visuals.  Still, that seeming inability to convey reality and depth to his worlds makes me glad that Peter Jackson took over the reins of "The Hobbit" when del Toro’s New Zealand visa expired.  Although they shared a lot of the same movie-making roots, Jackson is clearly someone who understands how a strong and intricate backstory can add weight and interest to his characters and his worlds.  I can’t help shake the feeling that "The Hobbit" movies would be vastly different had del Toro remained in charge of that production.

"Pacific Rim" demonstrates how every director and storyteller is better at some things than others.  It's a great ride, and every once in a while, you need a movie like that to remind you exactly why you love the Fantastic so much.  Just don't expect more from it than that or...well, let me put it like this.  With the exception of one other Hawaiian, everyone bolted after the credits started rolling.  After part of the credits, there was an additional scene, during which one character emerged unscathed from what had seemed, during the movie, to be a deadly encounter.  For me, the short scene exhibited del Toro's quirky humor.  The Hawaiian grunted, "That's stupid!" and marched out.

"Pacific Rim" may not be Tolkien, but it's a lot of fun.  (Thankfully, for Tolkien adaptations, we have Peter Jackson).  Now, where's my DVD of "Hellboy?"  I want to watch that movie again!

Dragon Dave

The Familiar Flavor of Terry Brooks

In my youth, I enjoyed Terry Brooks’ first three Shannara novels so much that I revisited them numerous times.  But I had never read the prequel to his first novel, The Sword of Shannara, which he published roughly two decades later, and it has been a long time since I’ve read any of his stories.

I found diving into First King of Shannara refreshing, and at the same time comforting, hungry as I was to recapture the magic his novels once held for me.  Brooks certainly knows how to tell an entertaining story, and his prose flowed smoothly as he introduced me to his characters and the dilemmas they faced.  He threw a lot of history at me in the opening chapters, but then he gave me a breather as Bremen returns to Paranor, the center of Druid learning.  There he tries to warn them that the evil Brona is leading an army of Gnomes, Trolls, and Skull Bearers to invade the land.  I enjoyed meeting his friends, and hoped that he could convince the council to accept his arguments.  Unfortunately, just as they once expelled him from their order, the Druids refused to see his point of view.  So they again cast him out.  But this time, some of his friends accompanied him, recognizing his wisdom, and the urgency of the situation.

Returning to Shannara as I did, without remembering much from the original trilogy, the novel struck me afresh, yet soothed me with a sense of déjà vu.  I enjoyed following the protagonists as they fought Brona’s minions, sought out the magical items necessary to combat the villain, and repeatedly faced off against the forces of evil.  I felt sad when the characters I had come to care about died, but rejoiced in the survivors’ triumphs.  With his prequel, Terry Brooks left me satisfied, and interested in rereading that first great novel, The Sword of Shannara, as well as the ones that immediately followed.

As a teen, J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels left me wanting more great stories like The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.  In Terry Brooks, I found a writer who sated my hunger.  While my palate has evolved since my teens, it’s comforting to know that I can occasionally order a former favorite off the menu, savor its familiar flavors, and leave the table satisfied.  If, after watching Peter Jackson’s films, or reading Tolkien’s books, you find your stomach rumbling, might I suggest a house special: one of Terry Brooks’ delicious and satisfying Shannara entrees?

Dragon Dave

Falling In Love With A Totally New Hobbit

One of the seminal events of my life was when a friend loaned me his paperback copy of The Hobbit in Junior High.  While I had read Fantasy novels before, J. R. R. Tolkien’s story was wholly different from anything I had encountered before.  One of the first things I did, after I finished the book and gave it back to him, was buy my own copy.  Then I read it again.

Perhaps because the story remains so precious to me, I felt somewhat reluctant to see "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" in the cinema.  This is nothing against Peter Jackson: I had, for the most part, enjoyed his adaptations of The Lord of the Rings.  Of all the filmmakers out there, he was the one I most trusted to bring Tolkien’s story to the big screen.  Yet I told myself not to expect too much from the adaptation, and put off seeing it. 

Sitting in the cinema, there were aspects of the movie I loved, such as the look of Bilbo’s house and Hobbiton.  I loved the way Jackson brought the dwarves to life, giving them each their own personalities.  I loved the way he way he captured the silliness of the dwarves’ song as they hurled Bilbo’s precious plates and saucers while they clean up after themselves.  I loved the visual scope of Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves journey across the incredible landscape of Middle Earth (which some insist is really New Zealand). 

Yet, there were also aspects that kept me at a distance from the movie as I watched it.  By adding so much to the story, it seemed as if Jackson slowed the pace to a crawl.  Perhaps because I saw it in 2D, or because it had been filmed at 48 frames per second, I felt like I was seeing too much: every scene looked like it was taking place on a set, and refused to blend into the background.  He added extra characters and situations that I didn’t remember, that made the movie darker, and more in keeping with the tone of The Lord of the Rings.  But most of all, I kept on expecting certain scenes to play out a given way, only for the characters to surprise me, and resolve the momentary conflict in a different fashion.  I couldn’t believe my memory of those scenes was faulty: clearly Jackson was tinkering with Tolkien’s story, changing those precious moments in a way he felt superior for moviegoers.

How dare he tamper with Tolkienian perfection!

Although I wasn’t anxious to see it again, my wife asked for "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" for her birthday.  As we don’t have a 3D TV or Blu-ray player, we watched the 2D version of the film.  With this second viewing, I found that everything I loved about the movie remained the same, yet those aspects I had disliked faded away.  The pace seemed well adjusted to the story, and the additional scenes and characters, no doubt drawn from sources such as The Silmarillion, blended better into the overall story.  Likewise, the foregrounds and backgrounds blended together on my smaller screen, so I no longer felt as if I were watching actors on a physical set.  Most important, this time I found myself more accepting of the different way certain key scenes played out (at least from the way I remember them). 

I don’t know why, but sometimes aspects of a movie I disliked at first fade away with a repeated viewing.  If you love the novel, but experienced a similar reaction to "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" in the cinema, I suggest that you try a second viewing.  Perhaps, like me, you’ll find you enjoy it more the second time around.  As for me, watching the movie again made me want to read The Hobbit again.  I don’t think I will, because I don’t want to be comparing the novel with the second and third films while in the cinema, but now I feel drawn to make that second attempt at (and actually read all the way through) The Silmarillion.  I also want to read Terry Brooks’ High Fantasy novels again, like The Sword of Shannara.  Ooh, and I’d also like to reread Jim C. Hines' humorous Goblin trilogy, and…

Dragon Dave