Reviews and Comments

For the last two decades "The Hobbit" for me has been the "Jackson Hobbit." I knew that Peter took breathtaking liberties, but on the whole I was surprised at how different Tolkien's and Jackson's Hobbit were.

It has been said how our visual perception of the works have been overwhelmed by the Jackson films. Virtually anything drawn of the characters now bears a resemblance, wanted or no, I suspect, of their actors now. I had a similar, though interesting, aspect of this happen during my read-through of "The Annotated Hobbit."

One of the things I strongly remember from my first readings as a teenager is that Bilbo strongly changed as the journey went on. He started as a "silly hobbit" as the tale began, and grew into a much more noble and serious character. While I couldn't think that I was the only person to see that, no one ever mentioned it to me. In fairness, it probably didn't come up in conversation. Imagine my surprise, then, on reading Tolkien's Letter #131 where he says, "...and in fact [...] the tone and style change with the Hobbit's development, passing from fairy-tale to noble and high and relapsing with the return." I never saw any relapsing, but it was nice to know I wasn't imagining things.

How did this effect my current read-through? Well, as I and others have mentioned the Jackson films have largely taken over our mental imagery of the characters. However, interestingly, as my read-through began, it was not Martin Freeman's Bilbo I saw, but rather Orson Bean's Bilbo from the 1977 Rankin and Bass "The Hobbit." I actually tried to make myself see Freeman, but it always went back to Bean. Amazingly about halfway through Ch. X, "A Warm Welcome," and the Company's arrival in Lake-town, I realized that my mental image had shifted on its own to Freeman, and that this shift corresponded to me seeing the change in Bilbo's character.

The read-through worked out well. Now we're off to "The History of the Hobbit."

There are some that have said that "Unfinished Tales" while good, holds the position of a band publishing songs that it originally left on the cutting room floor. I disagree with that assessment.

First, let us be clear for new people: "Unfinished Tales" is not a new read. It is not a book you read first. Ever. A good reading of (in order of importance) "The Lord of the Rings," "The Silmarillion," and (optionally) "The Hobbit," is required. Without this background you simply will not be able to make any sense of what you're reading in "Unfinished Tales" despite Christopher's very good notes.

Here you will find details that fans of the Legendarium have long wondered and wanted to know about. What is Gandalf? What was the order he was part of, and who were its members? What's the real story(s) behind Galadreal? How did Gondor and Rohan become such good friends? "Aldarion and Erendis" give us an actual story set in the time and place of Numenor. All of that is here.

Rather than "Unfinished Tales" being works that never made the cut, or ended up on the cutting room floor, rather it is a collection of work, literally, that was still in development by their author who was, unfortunately, gifted a lifetime of Men rather than Elves.

Yes, there is a hierarchy of canonicity here. If the "Lord of the Rings" says something and "Unfinished Tales" says something different, "Lord of the Rings" wins. But for the rest, we can revel in the additional thoughts, ideas, and details.

The book - the writing, the story - was good. The subject matter was...out of this world. And not in a good sense.

Let's be very clear - this is a work of fiction. At best it can be said to be "inspired by real events." I think this is how the author, Ben Mezrich, does a lot of his writing. In and of itself, that's not a bad thing, but it can easily get you into trouble as we'll see. You have to realize that the conversations you're reading are not entirely real. (In this book, in fact, Mezrich admits he didn't even interview a major character - Bigelow - but made everything up based on published interviews and reports.)

Having said that, sometimes playing fast and loose with the facts can get you into trouble as I said. Offhandedly Mezrich mentions towards the end of the book that Zukowski is a ham radio operator. However the FCC has no record of Zukowski having a license. There are a few possible explanations here. Zukowski is a pirate operator (nice for someone previously involved in law enforcement, even in the "volunteer" way he was), Mezrich doesn't know the difference between amateur radio, CB, or the "Family Radio Service," or Mezrich put it into the book because it "sounded cool." But if that sounded cool, how many other things sounded cool, or did Mezrich just get plain wrong?

Like I said, the book is good as long as you accept it as a work of fiction.

The book ends wondering what road Zukowski would go down after he "discovered" what he discovered. History tells us - into the arms of the "Travel Channel" and to trademarking his own nickname. Not exactly someone who at all took the world by storm.