Bilbo's quote: compliment or insult?

[Arawethiel]

[img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] I thought about this for a while too when I made this quote my sig. The first part is definitely a compliment. The second half is what really boggles the mind. It confused me back when I first read it in The Hobbit. I prefer to think that it was a compliment saying that Bilbo didn't like them as much as they deserved. However, I can also see it as being an insult implying that some Hobbits deserve to be liked less than they are. I guess it depends on how you look at it. I like this quote a lot though and I think it would be funny to use on a real group of people in a speech. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I missed this thread the first time round, so I'm self-indulgently resurrecting it so that I can have my say.

Bilbo is saying a number of things in his convoluted statement, most of them pleasant and some of them less so. I'll take it all point by point to simplify things.

I don't know half of you half as well as I should like

Or as has been pointed out above: "I should like to know half of you twice as well as I do."

and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

Or "...and less than half of you deserve me to like them twice as much."

What everyone's missed here is that Bilbo divides the hobbits into three: those he doesn't know as well as he would like (about half of those present), those he does know, but doesn't like as much as they deserve (just under half of those present), and those he both knows as much as he would like and likes as much as they deserve (some undisclosed very small number of those present). The last group is implied by exclusion, and is the most ambiguous of the three. Bilbo's showing very unhobbitlike cleverness, because it's up to each individual to decide where they belong, and the last group could include both Frodo and the Sackville-Bagginses.

Bilbo could have said: "Half of you I don't know very well, most of the others I like less than I should and I think of everyone else as they deserve." He could also have said: "I'd like to know half of you twice as well, I should like nearly half of you twice as much as I do, and the rest have no cause to complain." The point is that that's a very ambivalent comment however you dress it up, and he's deliberately obfuscated his meaning to buy himself time while his audience works it out. Probably some of them never did.

Tolkien had to do quite a lot of public speaking in his time, since a professor's job is to profess: in fact he delivered far more lectures than his contract required. This little aside makes me wonder whether he was in the habit of making comments deliberately calculated to go over the heads of his audience, and with his audiences those would have to be very clever comments indeed. He was certainly no stranger to the skullduggery of faculty politics, which is abundantly clear when he shows great councils in session. Bilbo isn't the only character who likes ambiguity either: notice that Gandalf is also good at quiet criticism (witness his smoke rings during his argument with Saruman in Unfinished Tales), and Tolkien genuinely seems to like it when people are rude without being obvious about it. The question of insults is also very evident in Lobelia's attack on Frodo ("you're no Baggins... you're a Brandybuck"), which is meant as an insult, but which Merry claims is a compliment, before reversing that into a playful insult by implying that it couldn't possibly be true. Such is the stuff of social interaction, which is why some people become hermits.

[Lalwendë]

Very wise move to use the 'divide and conquer' technique with this one as the meaning is in the clauses which themselves divide and conquer - the line is very much a linguist's joke. It's how I approach it and people usually understand it after I've explained it this way. Try my simple explanation:

I don't know half of you - Bilbo divides the group into two halves

half as well as I should like - For this half, Bilbo doesn't feel he knows them well enough; this is something he regrets.

and I like less than half of you - Bilbo divides the group into a majority and minority

half as well as you deserve - Bilbo feels he doesn't give the minority group enough credit and they are in fact admirable Hobbits and deserved more of him.

Break it up like a Times crossword clue and there you have it.

[Rikae]

Yes, but it isn't necessarily a compliment.

"I don't know half of you half as well as well as I should like" implies that he would like to know half of them better, but also that he wouldn't like to know the other half better - perhaps he feels he knows them too well already!
Likewise:
"I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve"
on one hand means the "less than half" deserve to be liked better than he likes them, but also means "more than half" don't - he likes them exactly as much, or more, than they deserve!

[Damrod]

My impression was that the meaning of it was up to the hobbits. A "glass half full/empty" thing. The S-B's would take it differently than say, the Proudfoots (feet?). Or, it might be some kind of grammatical English-professor inside joke of Tolkien's.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Rikae

Yes, but it isn't necessarily a compliment.

"I don't know half of you half as well as well as I should like" implies that he would like to know half of them better, but also that he wouldn't like to know the other half better - perhaps he feels he knows them too well already!
Likewise:
"I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve"
on one hand means the "less than half" deserve to be liked better than he likes them, but also means "more than half" don't - he likes them exactly as much, or more, than they deserve!

Well he's actually addressing the people who he directly mentions in the statement, the people who he hasn't taken the time to get to know as well as he would have liked, and the people who he feels he has not esteemed enough. These are parting words, and he is trying to make amends with those who have not been his best friends, but in such a way that he is not delivering mere platitudes which can easily be forgotten. Nobody would forget these words on the other hand!

Originally Posted by Damrod

My impression was that the meaning of it was up to the hobbits. A "glass half full/empty" thing. The S-B's would take it differently than say, the Proudfoots (feet?). Or, it might be some kind of grammatical English-professor inside joke of Tolkien's.

Yes it is a glass half full/empty statement, and understanding it as a compliment would indeed depend upon the listener being well-disposed towards Bilbo, as it would be very easy to take his words as an insult! But logically borken down, they are a compliment.

He's also, in the words he does not say in the second clause, being slyly self-complimentary, saying that in fact he did take pains to see the best in most of the Hobbits he knew. But that would be inference and inferring things is possibly the biggest joke of all in his statement.

[Boromir88]

It was only recently that I had heard Lalwende's breakdown of Bilbo's saying, which hearing it that way I certainly agree. I think its the one that fits best with Bilbo's character.

The thing is, is just like it was to us, it's confusing to them Hobbits to figure out. As we are told, Hobbits like simple things, they don't really like to sit and think about what does this mean. And that's exactly what Bilbo does, he makes them think 'what the heck is he talking about?' 'What is he saying?'

Yes it is a glass half full/empty statement, and understanding it as a compliment would indeed depend upon the listener being well-disposed towards Bilbo, as it would be very easy to take his words as an insult!~Lal

I think more importantly than who was listening, was the tone that Bilbo said it in. Aye, that very difficult thing of tone. It's hard to read tone, unless there are 'emotions' attached to it.

When I saw the movies, the way Bilbo (Ian Holm) says it is rather demeaning, especially the second part of the quote. The first part he says all proudly and happy, the second part the...and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve., he says it demeaningly as if it were an insult. You'll have to watch, ore remember this part of course to have any idea what I'm talking about. But when Mr. Holm says it there's a difference between the two parts, and the way he says it. That second part he goes into a lower voice and says it as if he's scolding some of them (as a teacher would to a student that was acting up)...as if he's saying 'I like you (the minority) more than you deserve to be liked by me!'

With the way it's said in the movies, thats how I just thought of it in the books, because it's hard to read 'tone,' it's hard to read 'expression.' Though when Lal told me this breakdown, and going back to read the part, it makes much more sense that Bilbo was trying to give a compliment...a very complicated compliment that most of the hobbits couldn't figure out whether it was a compliment or not.

[Rikae]

Well, bear in mind that there were hobbits present *cough*Sackville-Bagginses*cough* that Bilbo really didn't like.
I think he wanted to compliment some and insult others ... all of the hobbits would have known what group they fell into, I think (note that the SBs were insulted).