A Dwarf, Not a Hobbit

Is any story a myth, or is a myth a special kind of story? I tend to think a story becomes more mythic as it becomes more universal, relying on themes everyone can relate to, but almost any story has mythic elements. We don't always see a contemporary story as mythic (or a mythic story as contemporary), especially if we think of myths as tales from the past. Once you look closely, you're often surprised to find mythic characters and plots hiding inside ordinary protagonists and story lines. Even current events can be read mythically.

Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is easy to identify as myth because it's epic fantasy, a familiar form of myth. The director has been criticized for stretching Tolkien's book into three movies and adding material, but almost any myth with staying power has variations that diverge. There have been other versions of The Hobbit, and more undoubtedly will follow. Jackson has tied his Hobbit movies very closely to The Lord of the Rings, turning Tolkien's almost playful treasure hunt into a prelude to the War of the Rings that explains much of what happens there.

I wrote last year about how I had come over time to see people I knew in Tolkien's characters. I identified most with Bilbo in last year's movie but was surprised this time to see myself most clearly in one or two of the dwarves. I don't think of myself as dwarf-like as Tolkien portrays them, but Jackson's handling of characters and interpersonal dynamics opened up unexpected vistas. This story really belongs to the dwarves, and the more I looked, the more human their problems became.

Likewise, the film shows a different side of the elves, who were heroic and otherworldly in LOTR. In Smaug (as in Tolkien's original), they're actually rather scary and, selfishly intent on their own concerns, are not above manipulation and deceit. Legolas and his father, the woodland king Thranduil, are lordly and arrogant, not people you'd really want to fall in with if you could help it. (One surmises that Legolas's character was later improved by his association with others not of his kind, the Fellowship, etc.)

The exception to elvish hostility in Smaug is Tauriel, a character Jackson and Company added to create a strong female presence. Some have criticized the surprising love triangle between her, Legolas, and Kili; I thought it brought a new piquancy to the story, which is now about more than just power, birthright, heroism, and treasure. Attraction and jealousy have been added to the mix, complicating things in an edgy but not inconceivable way.

It's very Hillmanian (as in James Hillman) to see yourself inhabiting multiple roles and stories, and I think the shifting perspectives between not only LOTR and The Hobbit but also between the first and second Hobbit movies make it easy for viewers to imagine themselves as more than one character. This is an idea I believe Jackson would approve, since he has appeared in cameo roles in all of his Tolkien films, here a Corsair, there a dwarf, there a man eating a carrot. Even some of the characters within the movie seem to play more than one role; Beorn is a potential protector and at the same time a fearsome predator; Gandalf is both wise and foolish, powerful and powerless; Bard is a leader in the making disguised as a rough and cunning bargeman.

It will be interesting to see if perspectives shift again as the Hobbit trilogy draws to a close in the next film. The current movie does a good job of showing the effects of power on those who wield it: from Bilbo, who finds in Mirkwood that the ring is already driving his actions in ways he doesn't want; to the Master of Laketown, who seems to enjoy the trappings of power more than the actual exercise of leadership; to Thorin, whose quest for his birthright as King under the Mountain is fraught with questions of moral ambiguity and divided responsibilities. Then there's Smaug himself, a living emblem of "might makes right," shown at one point gilded in molten gold, which he shakes off like a dog shedding water before flying off to attack Laketown. More than just the continuation of a hero's journey, Jackson's second Hobbit film is rather acute in looking at the shadow side of the quest.

You can respond to Smaug on many levels. The kids in the audience seemed to enjoy it as an adventure story, which it is. Tolkien fans are kept busy with comparisons between the book and the film (personally, I think most of Jackson's choices fall in with the spirit of Tolkien, if not the letter). Lovers of special effects and spectacle have a great deal to chew on, and the mythologists among us (and I hope we're all mythologists to some extent) are invited to find themselves and the world around them in the quest of 13 dwarves and a hobbit for treasure. On none of these levels is the filmgoer likely to come up empty. One of the characteristics of myth is its multilayered capacity to say several things at once.

Handsome Is As Handsome Does

I'm hard to please when it comes to literary characters. Specifically, I'm thinking now of romantic heroes. I seem to have gotten on a track of reading novels with romantic plot lines this summer, so several leading men are jostling against one another in my mind's eye. I was reading a book last week about a woman who had a summer affair with a man she met in Europe. The book was insightful about many things, but the main character, a relatively young woman, related the story as if all good things in life were behind her, all because the guy she tooled around with wouldn't leave his loveless marriage for her.

This guy actually asked her, at the end of their affair, if she expected him to ruin his life for her. Ding-ding-ding! Fire! Disaster! Help! Shouldn't that have told her what she needed to know? Would you believe that someone who'd say such a thing was the best thing that ever happened to you? She didn't seem to see it the same way I did, though, and at story's end was in deep mourning over the one who got away. I don't get it.

She did say he was good-looking, easy-going, companionable, and funny, but isn't that beside the point? To me, nothing kills the credibility of a hero like unreliability.

Well, Mary, you might say, what heroes do you find credible? Of course, you probably think I'm going to put Rochester from Jane Eyre at the top of my list because I was once an English major and he's in my dissertation. Actually, though, I have a problem with his lack of truthfulness about the madwoman in the attic. He should have told Jane the truth. That would have been a different book, but after all, a preexisting wife is not a small thing.

Some of Jane Austen's men stand up pretty well, although some are a bit milquetoast, even if you otherwise like them (Edward Ferrars, I'm talking to you). I blame some of this on the mores of the world Austen was depicting. You really don't expect a sturdy character like Aragorn son of Arathorn to wander into the genteel precints of Emma or Pride and Prejudice, even though it's fun to imagine it. I think Emma's Mr. Knightley comes off well, since he always gives Emma good advice and remains steadfast in his concern for her welfare. He's intelligent, kind, and consistent, though of course he can afford to be. He doesn't have someone breathing down his neck about making an unsuitable match.

I've already mentioned Tolkien's Aragorn, a rough-and-ready character who cleans up well, is brave and honorable, and doesn't scare easily. He turns out to be a king, but I don't know that I don't like him better as Strider, the wandering Ranger who doesn't look like anyone special, but is. One of my other favorite heroes is Mary Stewart's Simon Lester, who appears in the novel My Brother Michael. The heroine runs into some truly hard-nosed villains in this story of murky dealings in and around Delphi some years after World War II, and Simon, a Classics teacher investigating his brother's wartime death, is a true rock.

I read this book as a teenager and barely registered Simon, who is not a flashy character, but when I re-read it several years ago, he seemed to leap out of the page with his courage, resourcefulness, and good sense, like a quieter version of MacGyver. I guess you need a few decades before you can appreciate a staunch, trustworthy character over the moody, tortured types that make such an impression on a teenager, but there you have it.

It all goes back to something my grandmother used to say when I was growing up: "Handsome is as handsome does." It used to irritate me, because I thought she was saying you couldn't trust good-looking men, which seemed like a sweeping statement (and not one I wanted to hear). Now that I understand what she meant, I've been known to say it myself.

I'm reading yet another book about a divorcée who is swept off her feet by a good-looking, sophisticated man and was ready to throw the book across the room last night when he showed up in a well-tailored jacket and crisp shirt that set off his tan but seemed too insecure to weather his date's nervousness. I'm deferring judgment for the moment, though, because the heroine is just as annoying, and I haven't gotten to the end of the story yet. I'm trying to be open-minded here and not a snob. Even a wealthy, good-looking man may have redeeming qualities, and I'll be the first to admit it.

A Hobbit, Not an Elf

I went to see The Hobbit on Saturday; along with most everybody else, I had been looking forward to it for a while. Normally, I don't read a book shortly before seeing the movie, but as it happens I did re-read the book quite recently, detachable cover and all (I got it as part of a boxed set for Christmas when I was a senior in high school). The story is so familiar to me that even without having it fresh in my mind, I would have noticed the places where Peter Jackson inserted material.

I've read that most of the added scenes can be traced to material in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings. It seems reasonable of Mr. Jackson to tie this movie (and the rest of the trilogy) to his prior work. The Hobbit (as a book) has an entirely different flavor, a lighter and more humorous tone, than the somber Lord of the Rings; I remember having to adjust to the change in atmosphere when I first read the books. The Hobbit is a caper, but LOTR is an epic. Mr. Jackson has emphasized the aspects of the story that place The Hobbit more firmly within the sequence of events leading up to the cataclysmic episodes in the later books.

So seeing the movie is both like and unlike reading the book; it is a little jarring if you go to the theater expecting absolute faithfulness to Tolkien's story as originally written. I agree with those who think some of the scenes were a bit long. (I thought we'd never get out of the Orcs' tunnels, but I felt the same way when I read the book. And the scenes with Radagast in the forest seemed misplaced, almost as if they been transplanted from a Disney movie.)

All of that aside, any combination of Tolkien and Peter Jackson is bound to have its share of magic, and it was fun to see The Hobbit on the big screen. One thing Mr. Jackson has always emphasized is the heroic nature of the quest; in LOTR he poignantly addressed the characters' struggles to live up to the enterprise and the ways in which their adventures changed (and scarred) them. The fellowship of the ring came together to accomplish something more important than individual ambition; in serving something larger, all of its members (even the weak ones) grew. In The Hobbit, Mr. Jackson seems intent on bringing out in a similar way the noble aspects of Bilbo and his companions. Not merely disgruntled treasure-seekers, the dwarves are in search of a home and a legacy that has been violently taken from them. No longer simply their bewildered "burglar," Bilbo becomes sympathetic to their loss and their real emotional need to reclaim their inheritance.

If any young person happens to be reading this, you may not have had the experience of a book (or a movie) somehow becoming different as you come back to it over time. It's happened to me with books I didn't like the first time around (like Moby-Dick, now in my dissertation, if you can imagine) and with books I've always loved. The first time I read The Hobbit, it was simply a very enjoyable, highly imaginative fantasy. It stayed that way for a long time, but when I started studying mythology, I was able to see it and LOTR in the light of a hero's journey and to understand intellectually the story's appeal. Then a little more time went by, and wow, the stories and characters took on an even more vivid hue as I started to recognize myself and other people I know in them.

In the introductory pages of my edition of the The Hobbit are the words of a commentator, Peter S. Beagle, who states, "Lovers of Middle-Earth want to go there. I would myself, like a shot." Imagine your surprise when you finally figure out that you don't have to go there because you're there already. Tolkien's world is really just a mirror, showing us ourselves, in costume, dropped into an imaginary setting, as myths tend to do. I just recently realized how completely familiar Bilbo's conflicted nature, the respectable, tea-cake loving Baggins side, and the wildly adventurous Took side, were to me. I also share his love of meals and the comforts of home. (I had always wanted to be an elf, but it turns out I'm more of a hobbit. You can't always get what you want.)

At the movie's end, Thorin and company are standing on the eagles' rock, looking eagerly toward the Lonely Mountain, with Bilbo declaring, "I do believe the worst is behind us" (of course it isn't -- there are two more movies to go). I don't know about you, but my reaction to that was a wry and painful sympathy. They haven't even gotten to the spiders yet, much less Smaug! This is where Bilbo and I part company: if it had been me, considering all the Orcs, wargs, and trolls I had already bested, I would have been demanding that someone take me back to Rivendell, poste-haste, for some R & R, river views, and a permanent hiatus. Of course, then there wouldn't have been a story.

Thank goodness for heroes!