“This is the story of how a Baggins had an adventure.” CBRBINGO – Rings

As I’ve written about The Hobbit before, and because other people definitely have as well, and much better than I have, this review will be mostly about the new audiobook productions of Tolkien’s works, which are narrated by Andy Serkis, of Gollum fame. So far I have only listened to this lovely production of The Hobbit, but I have the full trilogy and The Silmarillion also ready to go for whenever I am feeling like a re-read. And chances are, now that I know how fun it is to listen to Tolkien’s stories by audiobook*, that will come sooner that it would have before. So thanks, CBR BINGO!

*I’ve never done it before in all twenty-five plus years of being a Lord of the Rings fan, who used to read the trilogy yearly for a good stretch there. This now seems like a very obvious mistake on my part.

To sum up, THEY ARE AMAZING.

Basically—for The Hobbit at least, which was a story invented for Tolkien to read to his young children at bedtime**—this story was made to be read aloud to you. And you should definitely let that coziness influence your decisions, here.

**Famously, The Hobbit was published largely because Stanley Unwin let his ten year old son, Rayner, read the book and give it a review.

Andy Serkis, who is at heart a character actor, is the perfect choice for reading this series aloud, and he should absolutely do more audiobooks if offered the chance. There are lots of really good audiobook narrators out there, but very few who are able to inhabit characters like Serkis can. He also has a very real feel for the rhythm of the story, and often enhances the text by slowing down, speeding up, or emphasizing in all the right parts. And of course, he IS Gollum, so Chapter Five, “Riddles in the Dark” has this really fun metatextual quality to it that is sort of indescribable.

It’s very fun to see Serkis sort of create his own Middle Earth in the way that he borrows speech patterns from some obvious places (his Thorin sounds eerily like Richard Armitage) and then creates his own in other places (his Gandalf does not really sound like Ian McKellen’s, but is no less fun). He can, it goes without saying, do all the accents. And oh man, he goes for it with the singing. And there are a LOT of songs in here, way more than you remember.

These audiobooks are a full on experience, and I cannot tell you how happy I am that I finally started listening to them. I’m going to have a hard time in the future picking up physical copies when I know this is available to listen to instead.

UPDATE: I have made honey cake, thanks, Beorn! (I said in a GR status update that every time I read this I want to make Beorn’s honey cakes.) Guess what it was fucking delicious.

CBR BINGO: Rings (this BINGO card was basically taunting me to start another re-read)