69 years of LOTR Book 1 | Why we're still reading The Hobbit and Fellowship of The Ring in 2023

J.R.R. Tolkien (right) himself made the artwork that was used as the dust jacket for the first 1937 Allen & Unwin hardback edition of The Hobbit. (Photos via Wikimedia Commons)

Many moons have passed since J.R.R. Tolkien first published his iconic novel, The Hobbit, back in 1937. I last read the book when it was thrust on me by my increasingly desperate mother after bedtime story requests were met with, “No, I don’t want any more golliwog stories, I hate Enid Blyton and you’ve told me those a hundred times.” What can I say, I was prematurely “woke” at the age of 8.  At the time, I remember being blown away by Tolkien’s richly imagined story of Bilbo Baggins and his adventures through Middle Earth.

Tolkien, as you may have figured out, created the Hobbit in response to constant badgering from his own children for a cracking bedtime yarn. Every night he would have to come up with continuity, sub-plots and narrative to satisfy not just demanding kidults with a vivid imagination but also sticklers for detail who grew up without iPhones. Let’s face it, Steve Jobs probably had it easier, and he wasn’t a particularly good father, by all accounts. Christopher Tolkien made Paris Hilton seem empathetic by comparison, often contradicting his dad about the colour of Bilbo’s waistcoat or which branch of the family had stolen his silver spoons.

Also read: The art of Tolkien: Exploring the visual world of Middle-earth

But what exactly is the Hobbit’s mojo, what secret sauce did Tolkien use to create this fantasy world? The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy have stood the test of time: 86 years after it was first published, Tolkien is one of the highest selling authors of all time with over 600 million copies sold. Let’s not forget the three award-winning movies with Peter Jackson. Sure, there’s action and bloodletting, but ultimately, it’s a story about a little guy from an obscure village who despite being a bit of a hustler, stands up for what is great and good in humanity without being overtly macho.

Tolkien wasn’t just any old author; he was the Rawlinson and Bosworth professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, Oxford, going on to become the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature from 1945 until he retired in 1959. In addition to his formidable teaching credentials, he was a world-class philologist. He couldn’t just write, he actually invented languages and an entirely new world, Arda, and then, just to show off, he bunged in Middle Earth. The Tolkiens were of Prussian extraction with the family tracing their roots back to Kreuzberg, near Konigsberg, where they made and repaired watches and clocks.

He was born in Bloomfontein, South Africa, and the family moved to England when he was 3. His father died of rheumatic fever, leaving the family with very little, so his mother took young Ronald and his brother to live with her parents in King’s Heath, Birmingham. He was home-schooled by his mum who taught him Latin and botany. But the game-changer was being introduced to a made-up language, Animalic, by his cousins, Mary and Marjorie. Next up was Nevbosh, a collaborative effort with the cousins and finally Tolkien’s own creation: Naffarin. It sounds like an over-the-counter medication, but was actually a derivation of Nevbosh with rich Latin and Spanish roots. He would go on to work as a codebreaker in the Foreign Office during the Second World War, although he never made it to the inner circle at Bletchley Park with Alan Turing and the Enigma team.

Also read: 5 popular franchises that owe a debt to JRR Tolkien and 'The Lord of The Rings'

What is truly amazing is the remarkable resilience of his work; in an era where killer apps become obsolete in weeks if not days and where sci-fi movies with billion-dollar budgets struggle for traction, The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy continue to attract and enchant millions of new readers.

So what’s the fuss all about and how relevant are hobbits, dragons and dwarves in a world of Hunger Games, Googly Eyes and Blokus? Tolkien’s brand of genius lies in creating a story propelled by memorable characters who are grown ups with childlike qualities, who are courageous but avoid conflict, who stand up for what is great and noble in humanity by embodying other-worldliness, without a trace of goody-goodness.

The original hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, is not above pulling a fast one over Gollum with a riddle of questionable heritage. He doesn’t let on to his dwarf buddies that he has the magic ring until it becomes absolutely necessary: why go nuclear unless you absolutely have to? Then there’s gold, guarded by the dragon Smaug: it’s like Tolkien figured out crypto. Baggins, without any heavy-duty special powers a la Potter, is the unlikely leader of a ragtag bunch of bearded refugees who have suddenly been rendered stateless by a despot and set off on a quest for treasure. The only fly in the ointment, so to speak, is that perhaps due to Tolkien’s ardent Catholic beliefs, not a whiff of lust is allowed to rear its ugly head. Nada, while Snow White may have remained chaste with her 7 dwarves, there is no shortage of racy material featuring her from TikTok to Porn Hub.

In the ultimate analysis, an author is judged by the acid test of longevity. By this yardstick, J.R.R. Tolkien is OG: well over half-century after they were first published, his stories bring joy and entertainment to nerds, gaming wizards, occasional readers, sci-fi and sci-fi haters and a bunch of folks with the attention span of a maggot who would never dream of picking up a book. That is some achievement.