MY REVIEW OF "THE HOBBIT", AND THE FANTASY GENRE.

For as long as I can remember I have always loved Fantasy, before I discovered the amazing writer that is Tolkien; when I was a little girl, I admit I enjoyed drawing unicorns, dragons, and goblins (and still do). The first true fantasy book I ever read was The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, which I immediately loved for the descriptive, very-rounded characters, and powerful positive messages. One thing about the Fantasy genre that I've always enjoyed is the amount of imagination that the best of writers put into such stories as The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, The Hobbit, The Lord of The Rings, Alice and Wonderland, The Looking Glass, and (to some degree) His Dark Materials (though after reading this, I didn't get much out of the overall theme except that it was one big pseudo-Narnia clashed with some slightly distracting hidden agenda against some kind of slightly unrelated subject).

Another thing I also like about Fantasy, and I am aware that I do not share this same like with most other people, is the level of archaic languages and old-style writing that are popular among this genre: when I first picked up and began to read my Aunt's copy of The Hobbit, I was surprised to find just how hard it was to read (I was much younger than I am now), as I was not so used to reading archaic languages as I am now (and reading backwards Japanese texts). But I enjoy reading and making out the messages of archaic text because I feel it is one of the best ways to expand one's mind in literature and in grasping the English language (or whatever other language you speak, depending on the story material).

One last thing that attracts me to the Fantasy genre is the creatures; whether they are more humanoid then animal (like the Hobbit creatures in the book), or more animal-like then human (like the friendly satyr character in Narnia). I am mostly fond of the purely animal-like creatures, such as talking animals (like the "Warrior Ice Bears" and Lyra's Demon in His Dark Materials), as well as purely made-up beasts like the hippogryphs in the Harry Potter books, most notably The Prisoner from Azkaban.

While it was hard at first to understand the writing style of The Hobbit, I still love the imagination that went into the construction of the story, plot, characters, creatures, and the world/universe that it all takes place in. Fantasy is not just about creating new words, people, and animals, but its also about creating whole universes just from one's mind, sometimes all from scratch.