The Hobbit: movie and book review together

This is my first combo review ever! And it’s a little bit unusual because I saw the movie first, then read the book. 

The movie - The Hobbit: an unexpected journey (2012)

So what to make of The Hobbit: an unexpected journey or otherwise known as Peter Jackson’s very extended love letter to J.R.R. Tolkien?

Well, first it was really wonderful to be transported back to the world of Middle Earth with its hobbits, wizards, elves and dwarves. In particular, it felt like seeing old friends again when Frodo (Elijah Wood), Elrond (Hugo Weaving ), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) and Saruman (Christpher Lee) popped up on screen. 

It was even great to see Gollum (Andy SIrkis) again! 

I thought Jackson really hit the spot with casting again: MartinFreeman was perfect at Bilbo Baggins and Richard Armitage, nearly unrecognisable under all that prosthetics, brilliant as Thorin.

Like the Lord of the Rings (LOR) trilogy, what stands out in every frame of this film is Jackson’s love of Tolkien’s imaginary world. And just like LOR the detailed look and feel of Middle Earth was amazing. 

While there have been many complaints about the length of the film, it really didn’t bother me too much. This was probably because I was in the comfort of a Gold Class recliner with drinks and snacks on hand to see me through!

That being said I do think the film would have benefitted from some tighter editing to create a better sense of momentum in the narrative.  I did find the repetitive battle scenes were a little bit wearying. But my overall pleasure in finding myself transported back into the world of Middle Earth overcame any of these minor issues.

The book - J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937)

Inspired by the movie and wanting to find what happens when the Dragon Smaug reawakens and of course not willing to wait another year, I rushed out to read J. R. R. Tolkien’s book.

I attempted to read the Hobbit in high school and can even remember the  distinctive cover of a dragon sitting on top of a shiny pile of gold. But for some unknown reason, I never managed to finish it. Probably because my teenage self was more interested in the realism of Robert Cormier, Slyvia Plath and Chaim Potok (that’s a whole other post!)

The Hobbit is a really fun read and of course being aimed at children doesn’t have the levity and depth of LOR.

The Hobbit is real 'boys own adventure' story and I found myself being happily and easily drawn back into Tolkien’s world.

The only disappointment in the book was just how quickly (Spoiler alert!) Smaug is taken out of the picture. I expected a bit more of a battle but the dragon was dispensed of in only a couple of sentences!

Reading the Hobbit and running into some of the characters from LOR again made me realise just how much I was absorbed by Tolkien's imaginary world and my awe of how one man's imagination could have created such a layered and complex world. A world that you really want to be part of.

I read LOR at a rather difficult time in my life - I had just come back from overseas and was unemployed and broke. I have very fond memories of spending sustained periods of time reading LOR while it seemed like the rest of the world was beavering away busy at work.

At that point, I realised that no matter was happening in my life and no matter how broke I was, I would always be able to find pleasure and joy in books. 

And for that I thank you J.R.R.Tolkien.

 

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

After watching Susan Cain’s passionate and funny TED talk, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her book Quiet: The Power ofIntroverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. 

I just had a discussion with friends over lunch about introvert/extrovert personalities and the Myers Briggs Type testing we've all endured as a part of the recruitment process. 

So I was all really quiet prepped and eager to dig into the issue of introverts. 

I found Quiet an interesting and thought provoking read. Cain makes some really good points about how our culture rewards and tends to overvalue extroverted behaviour.

I was cheering big time at her critique of open plan office and the fact that they are not conducive to actually thinking and working. 

Being at the introverted end of personality scale, I found it reassuring to recognise my behaviour and have it explained and also valued. While not a ‘self-help’ book in the truest sense, Cain’s book does provide a reassessment of the ‘power’ of introverts. 

As Jon Ronson writes in his review:

“It's also a genius idea to write a book that tells introverts – a vast proportion of the reading public – how awesome and undervalued we are. I'm thrilled to discover that some of the personality traits I had found shameful are actually indicators that I'm amazing. It's a Female Eunuch for anxious nerds. I'm not surprised it shot straight to the top of the New York Times bestsellers list.”

But unfortunately I was never really totally absorbed by the book and I found myself skimming through chapters.  

The main issue was the constant and exhaustive review of the academic research which I was just not that interested in.  Rather than a quick summary, Cain would devote pages to detailing a journal article and the research it was based on.

I also found the chapter: "Soft Power - Asian-Americans and the Extroverted Ideal' a little problematic. I was very uneasy about some of inherent essentialist arguments and over generalisations being made. 

What I enjoyed the most and what makes Cain's book worth reading is where she writes about her personal experiences and talks to other introverts. For example, she writes about forcing herself to attend an Anthony Robbins 'power' seminar and also where she ends up going to an introverts retreat and actually hating all the silence and non-speaking! 

Overall, I'm really glad I read Cain's book and she makes a powerful and eloquent argument for valuing introverts.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

It’s always a treat to find a book with the all things you love in life.

Robin Sloan’s Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore ticks all the boxes for me. It contains all these elements:

• bookstores and working in bookstores
• set in San Francisco - my favourite city in the world
• a secret book club filled with eccentric characters
• fonts – which play an important part in the story
• detour in New York – my second favourite city.

The story begins with Clay Jannon, an out work web designer, who finds himself working the night shift at an old fashioned bookstore:Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.  

Because of the economic downturn,  Clay mourns for a web design career cut short before reaching its peak.

So instead off all things digital he now finds himself in a world of print and dealing with borrwwing cards and catalogues. Oh and he also get's involved in a secretive book club.

Clay's adventures takes him from San Francisco to New York, with a detour onto Google’s campus.

Along the way Clay has help from his childhood best friend who is now mega rich and owns a lucrative start up, an attractive Google employee and flat mate who works at Industrial Light and Magic. 

See how much fun it is already? This book revels in it’s all its geekiness and I can’t remember a book I have enjoyed so much.

Needless to say, Dungeons and Dragons and sci fi are heavily featured in the story!

As well as a rollicking adventure book, what makes Sloan’s book a real standout is that it’s absolutely laugh out funny.  

He writes with such a dry wit, taking a very sly, but also endearing take, on the whole tech start up culture in SF and the relationship between print and digital, ‘old knowledge’ and ‘new knowledge’.

Sloan is a former Twitter employee and I also loved all the details about Google and the way it operates.

As Kevin McFarland notes in his review, 

Sloan’s depiction of startup culture in San Francisco is positively dead-on and bitingly funny, and taking the story to Google’s Mountain View campus offers plenty of opportunities to poke holes in the puffed-up egos of the digital behemoth.

In the end the book is a passionate embrace of all things digital and print.

As a passionate reader who has embraced ebooks in the past year it also really resonated with me. What have we gained and what have we lost with the shift to ebooks?

Back to fiction: The Sisters Brothers

In 2012, non-fiction featured quite heavily in my reading list so it’s nice to end the year by going back to fiction. 

It's holiday time and I just wanted a great story to take me away.  Patrick Dewitt’s The Sisters Brothers, certainly did that!

This book is a strange, violent and compelling Western about two brothers who are assassins.

Yes that is right, I read a Western! I must admit the Western is a genre that I’m not too familiar with and don’t have much of an interest in.

Dewitt’s book, described as a ‘revisionist Western’, tracks the relationship and adventures of the much feared and loathed Charlie and Eli Sisters who are on a job to kill a gold prospector Hermit Kermit Warm.

Set in the 'wild West' of the Gold Rush era, the story is told from the perspective of Eli Sisters and it’s really his voice that really makes the novel so interesting, original and at times very poetic.


An overweight, sensitive, romnatic and philosophical assassin is the last thing you expect in a Western genre, but Eli Sisters is exactly that. 

I’m not sure that The Sisters Brothers has ignited my interest in Western, but it is certainly a terrific read.  

It’s hard to describe this strange, funny, violent and compelling story but from the first chapter it had me totally hooked. 

One reviewer described the book as a bit like a Coen brothers movie, which is very apt as you are either a fan of their type of movies or not. There really is no in between. 

I'm a big fan of the Coen brothers, so I really enjoy this type of story telling with quirky characters and situations.  

It’s a sign of a great writer when the story and characters stay inside your head long after you have finished the book.

Charlie and Eli Sisters have certainly stayed with me.

Justin Cronin’s The Twelve

Book two finally arrived! 

The Twelve is Justin Cronin’s eagerly awaited sequel to The Passage, his best-selling ‘adult’ vampire novel.

I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this novel, especially as The Passage was one of my favourite books of 2010.

I was so eager to be transported back to the post-apocalyptic world of virals.

Where The Passage was a more intense and  emotionally gripping read, this second book shifts the series into an action/thriller genre.

But the main problem is that does so in a very slow way. It isn’t until a good third into the book that the pace picks up and the characters all converge to (another) climatic battle scene.

In these sections, you do have to admire Cronin’s ability to drive the narrative forward creating a gripping and compelling page turner. 

A lot the set peices are perfect for the Ridley Scott produced movie to come.

The final battle scene is so vivid, with the gore and violence certainly pitched up a notch.

But unfortunately the start of the book did leave me a little bit cold and I had to really persevere.

For me the book certainly didn’t hit the high notes of The Passage, and in some ways get a bit too swallowed up in its own mythology.

Overall, I felt that Cronin just wasn’t able to sustain the epic world that he created so wonderfully and vividly in The Passage.

Here's hoping Book Three: The City of Mirrors (2014-really so long again!!!) brings back some of the spark.