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Snowdog · 10-05-2024, 12:32 AM

I was 17 when I read The Hobbit in early summer 1975. I had just completed my junior year of high school and summer was in full swing in Seattle. I was walking about with my neighbor one night, and as we shared some pipeweed all rolled up in a ZigZag, he told me about this book he just read and enjoyed very much called The Hobbit. I asked what a Hobbit was, and he told me they were short care-free folk who like eating, drinking, & smoking! Said I'd be interested in reading it since I had just recently finished one of Asimov's Foundation books and wanted something different to read.

So he loaned me the Hobbit paperback and said he was starting on the Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring. I Read through The Hobbit and liked it, but thought it to be a bit juvenile.

He then loaned me Fellowship and said it's a bit darker and not so playful as The Hobbit. I enjoyed it much more. I read the rest of the Lord of the Rings trilogy through the rest of 1975. I was 21 when I read the Silmarillion, and was 27 when I read Unfinished Tales.

Oddly, I have only read The Hobbit all the way through only that one time. I've read Lord of the Rings countless times along with Unfinished Tales and the Silmarillion and Children of Hurin. Not sure why The Hobbit doesn't have that same magnetism for me.

The context of the time when I read The Hobbit in 1975 was that of a post-Watergate, recently post-Vietnam War economic stagnation that was the USA at the time. I was partying, and the bicentennial hype was building. Going through the door to Middle Earth via Bag End was a refreshing reassurance, and at the time I didn't realize it would affect the rest of my life with a love for Middle Earth that it instilled in me.

10-05-2024, 12:32 AM	#7
Snowdog Emperor of the South Pole Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: The Western Shore of Lake Evendim Posts: 647	The Hobbit I was 17 when I read The Hobbit in early summer 1975. I had just completed my junior year of high school and summer was in full swing in Seattle. I was walking about with my neighbor one night, and as we shared some pipeweed all rolled up in a ZigZag, he told me about this book he just read and enjoyed very much called The Hobbit. I asked what a Hobbit was, and he told me they were short care-free folk who like eating, drinking, & smoking! Said I'd be interested in reading it since I had just recently finished one of Asimov's Foundation books and wanted something different to read. So he loaned me the Hobbit paperback and said he was starting on the Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring. I Read through The Hobbit and liked it, but thought it to be a bit juvenile. He then loaned me Fellowship and said it's a bit darker and not so playful as The Hobbit. I enjoyed it much more. I read the rest of the Lord of the Rings trilogy through the rest of 1975. I was 21 when I read the Silmarillion, and was 27 when I read Unfinished Tales. Oddly, I have only read The Hobbit all the way through only that one time. I've read Lord of the Rings countless times along with Unfinished Tales and the Silmarillion and Children of Hurin. Not sure why The Hobbit doesn't have that same magnetism for me. The context of the time when I read The Hobbit in 1975 was that of a post-Watergate, recently post-Vietnam War economic stagnation that was the USA at the time. I was partying, and the bicentennial hype was building. Going through the door to Middle Earth via Bag End was a refreshing reassurance, and at the time I didn't realize it would affect the rest of my life with a love for Middle Earth that it instilled in me.