The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien

Published 2002 · 380 pages · 95,664 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Fantasy, Children's Literature, Coming-of-Age

How hard is The Hobbit, or There and Back Again to read?

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again scores 29 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 28 out of 100
Tolkien uses plain, domestic English with invented names and runes sprinkled in. Words like 'confusticate' and 'bebother' are playful, and the language stays at a child's level, near Beach Read and Are You There God.
Sentence structure: 28 out of 100
Sentences are mostly short or lightly chained with 'and', in a spoken storyteller's rhythm with direct address. Longer comic lists appear, but nothing demands careful parsing, a little closer to 1984 than to Gatsby.
Abstraction: 28 out of 100
The story is concrete: meals, pockets, ponies, fires, riddles and swords. Greed and courage are shown through action, much like Asterix and Are You There God.
Information density: 38 out of 100
Many names and places arrive quickly (thirteen dwarves, runes, kin and histories). The pace stays light, comparable to Beach Read, though it demands more tracking than most children's books.
Narrative indirection: 28 out of 100
The narrator tells readers who is good, who is silly and what to feel. Gandalf's reasons and the ring's meaning stay unexplained for a while, but the story reads close to Asterix or Beach Read.
Symbolic density: 38 out of 100
The ring, the sword Sting, the round door and the dragon's gold carry meaning, yet they are plain and signposted. Compare Orwell's openness more than Gatsby's subtlety.
Ironic distance: 30 out of 100
The narrator teases Bilbo's fussiness and the dwarves' pomposity, and jokes about heroes and golf. The irony is gentle and sincere, closer to Moby-Dick's humour than to Lolita.
Resolution withholding: 22 out of 100
The supplied chapters are episodic: each danger is solved, and the larger quest remains plainly open until the end. The plot is straightforward and the mood reassuring, comparable to Beach Read.
Structural complexity: 25 out of 100
A linear journey with episodic adventures, a narrator who comments, and one detour with Thorin's captivity. Simpler than Gatsby; closer to 1984's clear divisions.

How The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is regarded

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again holds a literary regard score of 81 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Where The Hobbit, or There and Back Again sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (178 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again scores 30 out of 100. A second mythos, comedy, pulls at it with a weight of 0.25. About the map of stories.

Mode: Romance
“I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am Ringwinner and Luckwearer; and I am Barrel-rider,”
Symbol: Mythical (archetypal)
Mythos: Romance III (romance iii)
“So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending!” said Bilbo, and he turned his back on his adventure.
Genre: Romance + Novel
If you have ever seen a dragon in a pinch, you will realize that this was only poetical exaggeration applied to any hobbit,

Where the story of The Hobbit, or There and Back Again takes place

  • Middle-earth, Third Age: the Shire, the Misty Mountains, Mirkwood and the Lonely Mountain, the main setting

7 things that are true of The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, with the passage for each

  1. Thirteen dwarves arrive one after another at Bilbo's door at the opening tea party, and Gandalf announces the count.

    “Now we are all here!” said Gandalf, looking at the row of thirteen hoods-the best detachable party hoods-and his own hat hanging on the pegs.

  2. Bilbo finds the ring by chance in the goblin tunnels and uses a riddle contest with Gollum to escape.

    his hand met what felt like a tiny ring of cold metal lying on the floor of the tunnel. It was a turning point in his career, but he did not know it.

  3. Bilbo names his sword Sting after killing a giant spider alone in Mirkwood.

    “I will give you a name,” he said to it, “and I shall call you Sting.”

  4. The dragon is killed not by the dwarves but by Bard, who fires a single black arrow after a thrush tells him of the bare patch.

    The black arrow sped straight from the string, straight for the hollow by the left breast where the foreleg was flung wide.

  5. Bilbo secretly gives the Arkenstone to Bard and the Elvenking to try to avert war.

    “This is the Arkenstone of Thrain,” said Bilbo, “the Heart of the Mountain; and it is also the heart of Thorin.

  6. Thorin dies of his wounds after the Battle of Five Armies and asks Bilbo's forgiveness.

    “Farewell, good thief,” he said. “I go now to the halls of waiting to sit beside my fathers, until the world is renewed.

  7. Bilbo returns home to find his belongings being auctioned because he is presumed dead.

    He had arrived back in the middle of an auction!

Scenes in The Hobbit, or There and Back Again that Frye would name

15 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Katabasis, Over Hill and Under Hill
the way went down and down, and it was most horribly stuffy. The goblin tunnels are a descent into the underworld.
Alazon, Inside Information
My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death! Smaug's boasting is a classic alazon speech that Bilbo flatters into exposing the weak spot.
Pathos, The Return Journey
There indeed lay Thorin Oakenshield, wounded with many wounds, and his rent armour and notched axe were cast upon the floor. The death of the dwarf-king is the sacrificial pathos of the quest.
Agon, Roast Mutton
“Dawn take you all, and be stone to you!” said a voice that sounded like William's. The first conflict of the quest, resolved by Gandalf's trick turning the trolls to stone.
Demonic imagery, Over Hill and Under Hill
Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones. Goblin-town gives an inverted, slave-labour society with instruments of torture.
Anagnorisis, Riddles in the Dark
A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo's heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, Bilbo recognizes Gollum's misery and spares him, a key moral turning point.

Books that share these scenes with The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

About the author

J.R.R. Tolkien