To celebrate a certain hairy-footed fellow’s 150th birthday and the release of a new film adaption of the book in which he stars, libraries, Reading Activists and reading groups across the country have been getting up to all kinds of Tolkien-related fun. Sunderland Library’s group of Reading Activists have sent us an update on what they have been up to.
Art Workshop
During the autumn half-term the library’s Reading Activists organised a clay model-making event, where families were encouraged to create their own Hobbit-inspired creatures. Feast your eyes…
My favourite chapter
Group member Daisy wrote a review of her favorite chapter of the book.
Chapter 5 – Riddles in the dark
My favourite chapter in J.R.R Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” is chapter five: Riddles in the Dark. In this chapter we are introduced to a character vital to the later Lord of the Rings series; Gollum, a repulsive creatures who survives by eating the raw fish he catches in the underground lake in his little boat. I think that the goblin caves description used when describing Gollum is fantastic. He is described as being a creature of darkness except for “two big round pale eyes in his thin face.” I feel that this description creates an image in the reader’s head which will be effective in scaring them. This chapter is very atmospheric as it is set in a dark, damp underground cave, while reading this chapter I felt as if I was with Bilbo in the cave, which caused shivers down my spine. In my opinion this is one of the scariest chapters in the book.
The main reason I love this chapter is because Gollum and Bilbo have a riddle-off, if Bilbo wins Gollum will help him out of the cave but if Gollum wins Bilbo is sure that the vile creature will eat him. I am a huge fan of riddles and I enjoyed trying to work them out and reading how Bilbo thinks hard about how to answer them. The hardest riddle in the chapter is: "_No-legs lay on one-leg, two legs sat near on three legs, four legs got some_. " Which is asked by Bilbo, I could not answer this riddle but it is soon reviled that the answer is “Fish on a little table, man at table sitting on a stool, the cat has the bones”. This made me laugh as it was not an answer I ever would have thought of yet Tolkien makes it seem entirely natural. My favourite riddle in the chapter is: “This thing all things devours: birds, beasts, trees, flowers, gnaws iron, bites steel, grinds hard stones to meal, slays king, ruins town, and beats high mountain down.” I was pleased when I could work this riddle out however Bilbo greatly struggles, the way in which he answers the riddle is unexpected and sudden, by asking for more time, by yelling “Time!” he answers the riddle correctly as the answer is ‘time’. The riddle ends when Bilbo asks Gollum what is in his pocket and Gollum cannot answer.
I enjoyed the mental challenge that came with this chapter and I also really enjoyed the way in which Gollum speaks. Not only does he speak to himself he hisses his words; he also talks to something which he calls his precious: “Bless us and splash us, my precioussss!” I enjoyed this because it makes Gollum seem much more real and therefore much scarier.
I enjoy this chapter for both the riddles and the atmosphere and although the Hobbit is one of the best books I have ever read and I would recommend it to everyone this chapter is defiantly the best thing about this amazing book!
h2. Get involved
Is your reading group or book club reading The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings? Let us know how you are getting on – send us an "email ":mailto:[email protected] a comment – we’d love to hear from you.
Watch out for the blog posts from our Hobbit Community as they read their way through the book.
