The Hobbit

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit, a small, furry-footed creature who lives in a comfortable hole in the Shire. He likes eating at regular hours, tea, a pipe, and a predictable life. Adventure, to him, is something for odd people, and the neighbors think the same.

One morning, a wizard named Gandalf shows up at his door and invites him on an adventure. Bilbo, wary, says he'd rather stay home and tries to wriggle out of the invitation with good manners. It's a scene everybody knows: the uncle who prefers the couch and the Sunday barbecue to any invitation to travel.

The book starts here because this is its big theme: what happens to someone who lives comfortably settled and gets dragged, almost against his will, out the front door.

The next evening, Bilbo's house is invaded by dwarves who arrive one by one, asking for food and drink. There are thirteen of them, led by Thorin Oakenshield, a dwarf with enormous pride. Bilbo scurries back and forth serving them, distressed by the mess and the emptying pantry.

The dwarves explain the plan: years ago, the dragon Smaug took over the Lonely Mountain, where they lived, and carried off all the treasure. Now they want it back. Gandalf recommended Bilbo as the expedition's burglar, a job he has never done. The dwarves doubt him, and Bilbo, offended, accepts just to avoid looking weak.

It's a pressure the reader knows well: accepting a challenge out of pride and only later realizing how big it is. The next morning, Bilbo runs out of the house, late, without a handkerchief or a hat, and the journey begins.

The dwarves' names are so alike that readers get lost, and the book plays with that. The fun lies in the contrast between the solemn mission and the chaos in the home of a hobbit who only wanted a quiet day.

In the first days of travel, the group gets into trouble. On a rainy night, Bilbo is sent to investigate a light and finds three trolls roasting mutton. He tries to steal a purse from one of them and gets caught, and the dwarves, coming to help, are captured one by one and stuffed into sacks.

Gandalf is the one who saves them, imitating the trolls' voices and stirring up an argument among them until sunrise turns them to stone. The book shows there that cunning can beat brute force, and that not everything is solved with a sword.

In the trolls' lair the group finds treasure and weapons, among them an elven blade that Bilbo receives as if it were a small dagger and that makes him feel more capable. Tools help, but it's confidence that makes use of them.