The reading for this week, under the category of the Heroic Journey, was The Hobbit by J.R. Tolkein. The most memorable aspect of this novel is the mythical creatures. Every part of this novel is filled to the brim of interesting and unusual characters, including hobbits, dwarves, goblins, gollums, and many other talking animals as well as shape-shifting creatures. Each creature has it's own set of interesting characteristics in the way they, talk, act, and think. The main character, the hobbit, for example, is very nervous-minded and is constantly comparing his situation to how it would be more comfortable at home. The wizard, Gandolf, is depicted as wise and stern in his manner, and purely set on his one objective of guiding the troop of dwarves and Bilbo. The goblins are depicted as nasty creatures that rule part of the land, and hunt ferociously. These descriptions are what lead the story, keeping you interested in what creature might appear next along their journey. Particularly the personification of the animals was interesting and something that I enjoyed reading. The eagles were another great example of that personification, because they were described as being able to communicate with the dwarves, hobbit, and wizard. They were seen as strong yet terrifying to all of the other creatures of the land, including the tribe of travelers, as well as the goblins and wolves. This personification of the animals, and their unusual character are a defining part to the fantasy genre as a whole. It seems as though many of these types of stories have dwarves, elves, wizards, goblins, fairies, or talking animals, shape-shifters, or even dogs that can fully stand and serve food on their own. These characters are what gives the genre a mystical and intriguing storyline to follow. Overall, I liked the novel and the fact that it was unlike most of what I've read before (since I haven't read much fantasy), but I found it a bit slow even though it was a short novel.
For this week, I read the short story Come to Venus Melancholy by Thomas M. Disch. The story had quite a bit of dark tones to it, as well as taking some time to understand. I think the element of surprise was something that played a big part in this story. Something that appears to be so normal, so close to what we know, can be the complete opposite. In this story, in the beginning, I thought that the character was monologuing about their life. The element of surprise here is that the "her" is a cyborg of sorts, that used to be a human, but is now a computer in a house. The second surprise is that the environment of the swamp isn't from planet Earth, it's on planet Venus. The final surprise was the cyborg's confession of both love and craziness. This was quite a short read and an interesting perspective since it's told from the cyborg's point of view. I feel like in many of these stories there is often a hero, and the story is narrated from that hero's...
The world-building in The Hobbit is legendary for sure! That's one thing about the franchise that I love as well! I didn't pick up that the different characteristics of each of the species actually had story relevance though, so that's an interesting find.
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