[Keeper of Dol Guldur]

A Long Expected Party does seem like a great follow-up to the Hobbit's events, nicely passing the reigns from Bilbo to Frodo, even as far as all the less thought out sorts of similes and things, like mentioning clocks, freight trains and such. For such a simple, grounded people, hobbits seem to have advanced in mechanical technology past even Saruman's tinkerings!

What I like a lot about it is that, unlike a bit of the Hobbit, A.L.E.P. doesn't seem rushed. It's a nice, long chapter with dealings ranging from the notorious Sackville-Bagginses to Gandalf.

What I liked even more about it is that, unlike the beginning of the Hobbit, which seems to rush Bilbo out the door, it gives a lot more insight into the day to day life of all the local hobbits, whether the Gaffer has a beer with Ted Sandyman and Daddy Twofoot in the Green Dragon, or Frodo traipses around after the party with Merry, figuring out what to do now that Bilbo has left and keeping everything sane.

It's not hugely obvious that Merry and Pippin, Fatty and Folco are Frodo's best pals throughout later on, but we learn that Bilbo has a few nephews and cousins who love hearing his stories, and you can safely guess that they were the very same loveable cousins Frodo was best friends with. Not to forget Sam, who also loves Bilbo's stories, and being a neighbor and gardener is up at Bag-End more often than all save Frodo.

Everything is nice and friendly, or at least homely, and the only thing amiss in the whole thing seems to be Bilbo. Now, we knew he had an adventure, and so the quite large amount of dwarves helping out and who were at the party presumably, wasn't much of a surprise, but his little episode with Gandalf certainly served it's purpose well - to alarm us, and make us wonder, just what was going on. It was pretty evident that it was the Ring at work, even without the book being called 'The Fellowship of the Ring'.

Anyway, I can see the obvious connections and similarities with the feel of The Hobbit, and I can also see that this chapter sets up a lot of great bonds between characters that at least I know I tended to forget about later on in the journey, when more extravagent, and bold, and heroic characters came into the spotlight. It's easy to get caught up in the epic, heroic events surrounding Aragorn, Boromir, and even Gandalf draws attention from the four hobbits who were the closest characters in the entire cast-list.

So now when I read ... I try to keep at least one part of my brain thinking back to Book One, and the Long Expected Party.

Oh, and sorry if this doesn't exactly follow up to the last few posts, I just haven't had time to read through all of it yet.