The Nature of Things

I discovered J.R.R. Tolkien, like many of my generation, in college. I read the trilogy, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and I was transported. I reread the books many times over the years. In fact, for several years, it was my annual ritual to reread The Lord of the Rings , so all those years later, in 2001, I was excitedly anticipating the release of Peter Jackson's filmed version of the first book in the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring . I wasn't disappointed. I thought it was a wonderful movie and I've rewatched it many times. I should mention that in the intervening years between college and 2001, I had had two children to whom I had passed on my love of Tolkien and when the first movie came out, we went to see it together. And the same for the next two. We enjoyed them all, though, for my money, The Fellowship of the Ring was still the best of the lot because it was closest to the book. When it was announced that there was going to be a Hobbit movie, I loo...

Like many of my generation, I first read  The Hobbit  as a college student many years ago. I confess I had reread it once or twice since, but it has been a very long time - probably at least thirty years - since I had last read it. I decided to reread it again in advance of the new Peter Jackson film which opens here next week.  When I first read the book, I loved it, even though it was technically a children's book and I was at an age when I was trying very hard to be an adult. It was a good story and had a character I could care about. What was there not to love? I wondered if I would feel the same all these many years later. I wanted to remind myself of the story in advance of seeing the film. I admit I'm feeling a lot of reservations about this film and Jackson's handling of it. After all, he's stretching out what is essentially a rather short novel with not a lot of action into three movies, which I feel sure will have an abundance of action.  I know, I know, he...