"Fellowship of the Ring" Full Discussion *Spoilers*

[Allison]

There are so many threads for this book, so we're starting fresh. Come discuss everything as you like!

[Ian]

As I took another look at Book One, I was impressed by the skill with which Tolkien made the Shire an almost-recognizable place, with just enough in the way of differences to keep the reader from getting bored, like living in tunnels. And the hobbits themselves are quite ordinary people: or so they seem.

This all gives the reader a chance to become acclimated before anything or anyone really extraordinary, like Gandalf and Dwarves show up. Of course, some people find this boring, and give up right there.

But I wonder if this impression survives translation. Some of the descriptions seems very, English, Which is not going to be familiar and mundane to a whole lot of other people. (I specify translations, because native speakers of English around the world share some common background, if only from reading about it.

Some of Tolkien's descriptions seem like an almost idyllic English village (at a time that probably didn't exist). It has to be familiar, but not terribly mundane, I suspect both he and his readers had a lot of help from literature, especially including popular literature, like the villages in Agatha Christie.