Confessions of a Hobbit-aholic

Warning: Spoilers!

The Hobbit movie finally came out in Australia on Boxing day, and I went. It was an event I had been anticipating for months, with fangirling dying cockroach hands being made at every trailer and mention. Frankly though, I was disappointed. Don't get me wrong; it was, as films go, exceptional. The acting, the score, the special effects the scenery (apart from non-moving clouds), the costumes, the shots, the all-round cinematography was, as demonstrated in The Lord of the Rings film, quite phenomenal. However, as film adaptions go, it  figuratively made me cry. The Hobbit is one of my favourite novels of all time, with a firmly cemented place in my top-ten. Semi-similarily, my favourite film of all time is, The Lord of the Rings- I must confess, I have yet to read ALL the books- with no preference of the three. I was horrified at the announcement that The Hobbit was to be made in three parts: I had no idea how it could be done well, and it turns out I was right.The Hobbit, unlike The Lord of the Rings, is not an epic. It is simply a happy little adventure tale about a lovable protagonist, with perhaps one or two undercurrents on the theme of greed and desire.  It's been padded out, altered and tried to be 'deepified'; thus turning it into a foolish parody of a brilliant novel. 

As promised, my third-hand copy of The Hobbit, which I inherited from my Grandparents, who owned it before they had kids. The covers are taped on and half the map is missing. I wouldn't trade it for anything, unless I could save someone's life with it.

The main positives of the film were: the cinematography, as previously mentioned;  the acting, with Martin Freeman as an excellent Bilbo, even if I did sometimes expect Benedict Cumberbatch to rock up and save the day; the intro, with beautiful links to The Lord of the Rings film and the first few lines of The Hobbit novel(albeit, changed ones); the Eagles being almost the only redemption for the end of the film; and, as expected, being able to stare at the gorgeousness of Kili for a fair bit of the film.

Negatives of the film included a vast majority of things, but I'll try to restrain myself. The entire section with Radagast was perhaps more suited to a child's film, as complete and utter comedy. He has a minor mention in The Lord of the Rings books, but does not appear at all in The Hobbit; oddly enough then, he does not appear at all in any of The Lord of the Rings films, but does have an utterly ridiculous and detrimental part in the film adaption of The Hobbit. The new sub-plot of the Orcs was completely unnecessary and ended up detracting.Necromancer? I know it's a small amount of sub-plot in the Hobbit, but do we really want another sub-plot not developed in the books to manifest itself in the films? The music, with throwbacks and repeats of The Lord of the Rings was pretty good, however The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit are from a separate set of films, and so I would have liked an entirely new soundtrack instead of the repeated theme of The Lord of the Rings and  eagle's theme. The bit with Saruman and Galadriel at Rivendell? Unexplained and unnecessary.

And finally, my most important question is simply: why? Why change it at all? Why make it into a film if you're not going to do a good job? Why not leave it as a happy little adventure tale, one a totally different scale toThe Lord of the Rings?

Final rating: 3 stars and it only gets that because of the beautiful cinematography. 

xx

Confession ( who apologises for a drastic change in what she normally writes and also for the huge blocky text!)

The Philosophical Vacancy

[Okay, evidently I conveniently FORGOT to tell you that, like Confession, I had to take a hiatus. Oops. I was going to write a post consisting of a giant, size 99pt "DITTO" but then Confession posted again... so that wouldn't have made any sense... and now we're here two months later. I applaud you for sticking around this long. Anyhoo. Onwards!]

As most of you lovely internet ladies and gents will know, the glorious J.K Rowling has released a brand new book. It's called "The Casual Vacancy", and it's effectively Harry Potter without wizards, magic, Hogwarts, evil armies of Death Eaters, and with a big ol' booster shot of REAL LIFE.

Basically, nothing like Harry Potter at all. "The Casual Vacancy" is a book for adults, and J.K. has said that right from the start. She said herself that she wouldn't let anyone 8 or under read it. Does it sound like the wonderful wizarding world of Sir Potter? Not to me. 

I've dived into "The Casual Vacancy" with a healthy pinch of salt. I'm not trying to compare it to Harry Potter; because, personally, I think that's unfair to Miss Rowling. And personally, I like it. It's well written, and even if she wasn't such an amazing part of my childhood, I'd still have bought the book.

 Use hefty pinches of this when reading 'The Casual Vacancy'

And it seems that a lot of critics have also taken my detached attitude to reading- but others, frankly, should not be writing reviews. Feast your eyes upon a selection of the critics, choicely chosen from Wikipedia.

Lev Grossman, for Time: "It's a big, ambitious, brilliant, profane, funny, deeply upsetting and magnificently elegant novel of contemporary England, rich with literary intelligence, and entirely bereft of bulls**t." [say NO to naughty words. Say YES to happy asterisks!]

David Robinson of the Scotsman said: 

"It is far grittier, bleaker (and, occasionally, funnier) than I had expected, and- the acid test- I suspect it would do well, even if the author's was not J.K. Rowling"

The Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, the Daily Mirror, The Economist- all of them had various degrees of positive reviews.

But it seems some reviewers approached The Casual Vacancy without the oh-so-important pinch o' salt. Some reviewers pulled out the forbidden words; HARRY POTTER

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES wrote: "it fails to conjure Harry Potter's magic" while Jan Moir for the Daily Mail said it was "500 pages of relentless socialist manifesto masquerading as literature"

"magic" "magic" "magic"

WHERE IS THE MAGIC? All of these deluded critics cry! 

I respect their opinions, and think it's important to give a balanced view on the novel. But what people HAVE to remember is that "the Casual Vacancy" is not magical. It's not a book about good overcoming evil. It's not a fairytale, or a bedtime story. It's a book about real life, and real life is not magical. It's gritty, and bitter and sad sometimes. There are a lot of things that we don't do right. 

But you know what? It's books like these that inspire change. It's books that SHOW us all the things we're doing wrong- all our mistakes and errors and the lack of magic in our lives. "The Casual Vacancy" isn't there to sugarcoat real life. It's there to present it in the most stripped-back way possible- and to inspire us all to start doing things RIGHT.

So, if you dare, pop down to the local bookstore and buy a copy. Read it, study it, make a judgement on it. Put it on a bookshelf if you like it. Put it in a golden display case if you REALLY like it. Rip it up and use it as toilet paper if you're not so keen.

Wonderful literature? Or super soft, flexible, 2-ply bog roll? You decide!

Well, this post has taken a suitably solemn and, er, vaguely depressing turn. I'll sign off before I start sobbing all over the monitor. 

with lots of casually vacant love,

Philosopher