Possibly my least favourite chapter in
The Hobbit, "Roast Mutton" jarringly takes us from the familiar-feeling comforts of the Hobbit-hole, and deposits us squarely in a bleak adventure-land of rain, ruins, and Trolls...
Although I dislike this chapter in general, finding it somewhat disjointed in connection with the rest of the book- a transition from Bywater to Rivendell would feel a bit better, I can see its purpose as the first episode of Bilbo's life as a burglar, the humourous prelude that makes the first of his real adventures (with Gollum) seem plausible.
That said- and that probably disagreed with as well- this chapter is not without its redeeming qualities. Although the speech and names of the trolls are most jarring different from the style of the
Lord of the Rings or the
Silmarillion, I've always been able to pass this off in my mind as an "earlier conceit of the translator who later abandoned such attempts as a valid method of conveying the Third Age".
What's more, jarringly wrong though the trolls and their speech may be, it's got some of my favourite lines from
The Hobbit:
"Mutton yesterday, mutton today, and blimey, if it don't look like mutton again tomorrer... "
Slightly modified, this is a VERY humourous line to think over when confronted with a situation of continuously boring food. World Youth Day and its obiquitous breakfasts come to mind:
"Warm milk and yogurt yesterday, warm milk and yogurt today, and blimey, if it don't look like warm milk and yogurt tomorrer..."
Now, if only there had been someone on hand who would have got it when I was thinking that...
Another classic line is, of course:
"A bur- a hobbit!"
"A Burrahobbit!"
"Burrahobbit" may have been Tolkien playing fun at the trolls' collective stupidity, but the very sound of the word- if a word it may be called- is rather enjoyable. Both the written look and the spoken sound are such that one can actually imagine Burrahobbits as a related species or a subspecies of Hobbit- perhaps an Australian kind. Of course, such a feeling on my part isn't too strange considering the profession of the good professor.