What mostly caught my attention in this chapter was the sheer materialism of it. Just how much useless stuff do Hobbits produce if there's a birthday about every day and they give lots of presents, many of which end up as mathoms? And this is certainly not the only manifestation of ghastly Hobbit materialism... Okay, I need to cut this talk, I just seem to be more and more concerned about all this stuff lately - yesterday I spent about five minutes what a horrible waste crisis all the toothbrushes people use and throw away so carelessly create...
I need to keep in mind that neither Hobbits nor Tolkien lived in a time in the brink of an environmental catastrophe and would not realise to be concenred about such stuff. Besides, one can always argue the Hobbits promoted local industry and economy by buying all this stuff and blah... (capitalism strikes again... eurgh. Where are you,
Nogrod?
)
Also, there are two examples of rather rude behaviour by nice Hobbits in this chapter. I wonder if it's because I don't get Brits'/Tolkien's/Hobbits' sense of humour or because it's really rather rude. First, there's this:
Quote:
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For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondance, with love from Bilbo; on a large waste-paper basket. Dora was Drogo's sister and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century.
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I've always wondered about that and considered it rather rude and weird, but actually now that I wrote it here, I can suddenly see two ways of interpreting it. Yay! Maybe Bilbo and Dora were so close that this passed as a good-natured joke between them, or maybe the narrator's tone is actually a little sarcastic when saying she had written reams of good advice. However, I'd be interested to hear how others understand this...
Okay, and the second rude thing:
Quote:
"You'll live to regret it, young fellow! Why didn't you got too? You don't belong here; you're no Baggins - you - you're a Brandybuck!"
"Did you hear that, Merry? That was an insult, if you like," said Frodo as he shut the door on her.
"It was a compliment," said Merry Brandybuck, "and so, of course, not true."
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And really, again, I think I realised as soon as I wrote it here. Haha. I was wondering why does Merry tease Frodo this evilly, but now I realised Frodo actually starts it. So this is just affectionate teasing between freinds, and now it even makes sense to me why it takes place. I had always thought that teasing remark of Merry's a little weird... This CbC stuff is most enlightening.
And as for the coming of age mentioned here -
wouldn't it be easier for all of the teenagers/young adults of this world if all the parents would do like Bilbo: just disappear when the kid comes of age and leave him the house and the property?
Onto next chapter...