Calling all women

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Shelob

But if you were to pick it up for the first time now, never having read and enjoyed it before, would you find it BAD or just something you wouldn't be able to finish reading?

I never said it was bad and were I required to write an essay on it, I could reread it. If I had, and indeed if I ever do have children, I would certainly read it to them.

But frankly I am astonished that anyone is surprised that a person who has long reached their majority should find the Hobbit, unappealing as something to read for themselves anymore than I would expect them to be surprised that I would prefer to drink Merlot rather than cherryade. It is very definitely aimed at smallish children and I do not particularly enjoy being spoken to as if I were six. It jsut doesn't appeal any more.

I am not a particularly snobbish reader. I read widely - supermarket fiction as well as Booker type stuff. Some "children's books" do have a lot to offer the adult reader. I read "his Dark Materials" and while I felt the second and third parts (the third particularly) were weaker, I felt that "Northern Lights" was one of the best books I have ever read - although one of the blackest and bleakest.

For me it is not a gender issue. I belong to a generation that caught rather than was innoculated against the childhood disease, also there was virtually no daytime TV (yes I am serious) and during those weeks of being confined to barracks but not feeling particularly ill, I read anything I could get my hands on including my father's "Boy's Own" annuals from the thirties and a lot of John Buchan. Other favourites were PC Wren (Beau Geste etc), and CS Forester (Hornblower), The Prisoner of Zenda/ Rupert of Hentzau ,Baroness Orczy (Scarlet Pimpernel), . Not all "children's" books at such but definitely not girlys stuff and only the demmed elusive Pimpernel with a female author.

I do occasionally re-read childhood (and by that I mean stuff really aimed at smalls rather than the crossover stuff) favourites but often with a sense of wallowing in nostalgia. I find the end of "The house at Pooh Corner" still moves me to tears and the poems still make me laugh.

The Hobbit is different because it is a portal to a world that has an adult and far more interesting version. I don't need The Hobbit other than as reference for LOTR and I always feel that I have been fobbed off with the childs version - the adult's version is hinted at in the Quest of Erebor in Unfinished Tales. I do find the death of Thorin moving - one of those more "LOTR" -ish passages but I thinkI was more upset at the time I first read it by the ponies being eaten. I wonder if thatis what put your ladies off .