[SpaceWeavil]

Discussion on the chapter - 'Not At Home' will officially begin on Monday 24/1/05.

Ellisk will begin the discussion of this chapter.

Anyone wandering by this thread should feel free to raise questions or make comments.

Please try to keep the comments on this thread strictly related to discussion of the Hobbit.

[ellisk]

Here is the summary for "Not at Home"

This chapter open with the dwarves and Bilbo in the mountain with the door smashed and impassable. Bilbo decides to go back into the mountain (after all-he's been that way twice knowing there was a dragon, now he'll go that way again not knowing if Smaug is still there) and he tells the dwarves they'd better go with him. They agree. They get to the area where Smaug had been and Bilbo stumbles forward into it--fortunately Smaug is not there. He asks the dwarves to make a light with one of their tinderboxes. After he shouts for them to make one, Thorin agrees and they should light a torch for him but he insists that he go forward with it alone. He does and climbs about on the treasure in the dragon's hall. While doing so, he finds the Arkenstone he heard Thorin describe before. He picks it up and keeps it thinking that the dwarves did say he could pick and choose his own share but doubting that the picking and choosing had been meant to include the Arkenstone.

He kept going through the hall until he got to the doors leading out and was about to go back to tell the dwarves all was clear when something, maybe a bat, flew in his face and made him drop his torch. It went out. He started shouting for the dwarves. They could barely hear his voice, only catching the word 'help.' After some debate about whether the dragon had got him or not, they decide to go out looking for him and they light more torches. They find Bilbo, make sure he is alright and then, finally drawn out to see the treasure, they begin looking through it. They fill their pockets and shout in happiness at one another. All the while, Thorin is looking for the Arkenstone, though he doesn't mention it to anyone yet.

Finally Thorin calls Bilbo over to him and give him his 'first payment.' It is a mail coat wrought for some elven prince long ago made of silver-steel, which the elves call mithril. He also gave him the matching belt of pearls and crystals and a leather helm studded with gems.

Then they realize that they still need to find an escape from the mountain. Thorin leads them and they walk through the halls of the Lonely Mountain, coming upon the great chamber of Thor, which was once a great feasting hall and now contains rotting tables and bones. Finally they come to the front gates and the head of the Running River.

They are happy to escape the mountain but decide that Smaug's front doorstep is not the place to stop and have breakfast. They decide to head off to the lookout post on the Southwest corner of the mountain. Along the way, they do stop to have a breakfast of cram (and we get an explanation of what cram is--a biscuitish food that the Lake Men use for travel that is supposed to be sustaining but is not tasty). Finally they find a rock wall and chamber where the guards used to stand and they stop there to rest, wondering where Smaug was.

[ellisk]

I'll make a little commentary here too, to start it off:

You have to love Bilbo in this chapter. I wouldn't have been that brave. It's him that leads them back to the dragon's chamber since they can't get out the door and the dwarves hang back excusing themselves by letting their 'expert burglar' take the risks. Good for Bilbo!

A couple things strike me as interesting in the treasure chamber. First Thorin is looking for the Arkenstone but doesn't mention that to anyone else. Why not ask everyone for help? Second, I always wondered who the elven prince was that the mithril coat was wrought for.

Whenever I read this part, I feel sorry for how Thorin must have felt seeing Thor's hall as it was. And I always think about how cool it must have been for them to come to the Front Gates and the head of the River Running--they sound excited to be there and not just because it means they escaped the mountain without getting caught by Smaug.

And I like the little comic relief--'how many breakfasts have we missing' grumblings at the end of the chapter.

I always thought this chapter was pretty interesting.

[NancyBrooke]

I have to start with an apology since I read this some weeks ago ... but what I remember most is how rich this chapter is with atmosphere and promise: Bilbo hiding the Arkenstone from Thorin, and Thorin's hiding his desire from everybody else; the image of little Bilbo roaming over a great landscape of gold; and how the dwarves must have been feeling -- Thorin and Balin in particular -- so happy to have gotten to this point, to be back in the Mountain, and yet to witness the devastation and remember what it had been.

Thanks to Ellisk I now remember the plot but the feelings from this one stuck with me.