Word: hobbit
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...riddled with riddles. Enigmas abounded in ancient Rome, in Sanskrit hymns and the sagas of the Norse. Galileo composed some, so did Shakespeare and Cervantes. In the last century, Jane Austen, Edgar Allan Poe and Lewis Carroll experimented with trick questions; in this century, J.R.R. Tolkien in The Hobbit offered a few original puzzles: "A box without hinges, key or lid. Yet golden treasure inside is hid." Answer: An egg. The sport trickled down to Gotham City, home of Batman and Robin; in a recent comic-book adventure, the Riddler leaves a clue to the locale of his next crime...
...sits in his study at Oxford correcting a student's thesis. The student had, for some reason, left a page blank. When Tolkien came to it, he picked up his pen and wrote on the blank page: 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.' Thus launched one of the great literary careers of our century. He was asked why he had done that, and he replied: 'It popped into my head.' No machine, no electronic wizardry, can replace the single act of creation, the inspired moment that arrives in its own time...
...program. In order to go on the outings, students must attend daily classes in "more conventional educational things," such as reading novels and writing. Each Harvard student teaches about eight children, and readings, although obligatory, are meant to be fun. One group last summer read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, while McLeod led his group in putting together a magazine. Besides the CYEP, PBH's 23 student-run committees include one to deal with the problems of Cambridge's homeless, one youth recreational program, and several related to problems of the elderly...
...Castle, he introduced a wide and insular American audience to the world's leading writers and most important historical events. To the Finland Station gave depth and drama to the Russian Revolution, and his essay "Oo, Those Awful Orcs!" deflated The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit long before they became cult books. By the beginning of World War II, he had failed to examine only one contemporary figure: Edmund Wilson...
...takes no sorcerer's power to realize that this other land is one small leap of the imagination from J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, and that Jen's adventures will frequently echo the Hobbit Frodo Baggins' in The Lord of the Rings. As narrative, the incidents in The Dark Crystal are unremarkable; as the excuse for special effects, fanciful decor and eccentric characters, they do nicely enough. Here, as in such ambitious films as Blade Runner and Diva, texture is more important than text. The slow funeral procession of Mystics across an undulating desert; the Skeksis...