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Originally Posted by SpM
Why? I have never gone along with this idea that Bilbo must have exagerrated the tale of his adventure. Why can we not simply take it at face value (accepting, of course, the changes made to his account of his encounter with Gollum, as explained in LotR)? Why are Giants, for example, merely products of Bilbo's overactive imagination when the Stone Trolls and Dragon are clearly not? Why should we dismiss Bilbo's tale as a collection of febrile ramblings when we take the account written by Frodo and Sam as gospel? Why should Bilbo's account of his own story be considered fanciful, when his collation of Elvish history is taken as accurate?
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Verlyn Flieger addressed this question at Birmingham. The problem The Hobbit presents is that it is full of incidents that don't 'fit' with the tone of the rest of the canon/Legendarium. The 'cockney' trolls, with their talking purse, the 'tra-la-la-lally' Elves, don't 'belong' in the world of LotR, let alon of the Sil. TH is much closer to a story like Roverandom - a children's story which made use of the Legendarium as background. The only way it can be made to 'fit' is to construct some quite elaborate 'explanations' - the most effective of which, I suppose, is that Tolkien the 'translator' took the contents of the Red Book relating to Bilbo & deliberately re-told them in a way suitable for children. But that begs the question 'Why do that?' Flieger said that she didn't much like The Hobbit as a story & that she didn't consider it part of the story.
Personally, I love the book, but I can see her point. Those trolls are
not 'Middle-earth' trolls, the Rivendell 'Elves' have clearly strayed in from 'Goblin Feet' & don't belong in Middle-earth. I think it was Brian Rosebury who stated that The Hobbit 'changes' its tone with the appearance of Elrond - others have stated that it begins with Gollum's appearance, & certainly the story from that point becomes more serious & darker in tone. But, for all I love the book I'm coming more & more to agree with Flieger.
Now, TH is still 'canon' in the sense of being a book Tolkien wrote & published, but is it part of the Middle-earth 'canon'? Well, only if Roverandom (& Goblin feet) is. Actually, I'd say Smith has a greater claim to inclusion in the Legendarium than TH....