Thinhyandoiel --
Isn't that interesting that your sister would pick up on that having read the Hobbit. Yes, at the beginning of that story, Bilbo was extremely concerned about keeping his Hobbit hole tidy. The morning he was supposed to leave with the dwarves, he said:
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Don't be a fool, Bilbo Baggins...thinking of dragons and all that outlandish nonsense at your age! So he put on an apron, lit fires, boiled water and washed up. Then he had a nice little breakfast in the kitchen...
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He had convinced himself to go nowhere and was eating his second breakfast. It was only when Gandalf came and insisted he be gone in the next ten minutes that he actuallly got himself out the door.
That scene makes a pretty sharp contrast with the beginning of the LotR where he was obviously relishing going to live with the Elves in Rivendell. He didn't spend time tidying up his house then. He just disappeared using the Ring and had a brief serious discussion with Gandalf.
This is more than just the difference in tone between a children's book and an adult book. It's a difference in Bilbo.
It's always hard being the first one to do something, and Bilbo was the first to break the mode of hobbit conventionality, at least in his day and age. Sam and Frodo had Bilbo as the unconventional Hobbit model and guide. But Bilbo didn't have any sympathetic example of a Hobbit nonconformist because he was the first one.
He just had Gandalf who was in and out of the Shire, sometimes away for years on end, over a long period of time. Gandalf must have been so very important for Bilbo who had to keep the faith so long and pass on his unconventional ways as an Elf-friend to the younger cousins. We sometimes forget how very parochial most of Hobbit society was. Bilbo and his young cousins were definitely the exceptions.
And once again, it should be said that, without Bilbo, without his stories and love of Elves, Frodo and Sam would never have grown to the point where they were ready to take on the Ring quest.
[ May 24, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]