Tove Jansson's criticized illustrations of The Hobbit (2023)

by abelanger • 5 months ago

223 123 5 months ago

The dragon is just great. These are so charming.

I've been thinking about that illustration of Smaug for nearly 40 years and I never knew where it came from (I didn't recall it was from a Tolkien-related thing, but I remember it vividly otherwise)! I must have seen it at a friend's or the library since as far as I know we never had these at home.

hosaka• 5 months ago

As someone who loved the Moomintroll illustrations I find this both familiar and hilarious. I suppose I might have a different opinion if I'd actually read any of Tolkien's works.

"She even made some of the characters especially tiny to elevate the landscapes." wish there were more examples of this in the images shown in the article.

kevinpet• 5 months ago

The article seems to be more of a review of the new book than any attempt to actually discuss the topic.

FarmerPotato5• 5 months ago

Jansson’s illustrations were reused in one of the annual Tolkien calendars. I kept it on my wall for years, changing the month every so often. So… 13 illustrations reprinted

Here are some book covers:

https://www.amazon.com/Hobitti-eli-Sinne-ja-takaisin/dp/9510... https://www.amazon.com/Hobbitten-Eller-Ud-hjem-igen/dp/87023...

summa_tech• 5 months ago

I... actually really liked these. And yes, sure, they aren't completely obedient to Tolkien's descriptions of the characters, but the atmosphere feels right.

But then again, I grew up with the Moomins.

jojobas3• 5 months ago

Moomins don't depict anything like saving the world, it's a whimsical universe dealing with whimsical non-issues.

I can see why Tolkien lovers are upset at these even though I'm not really one of them.

Sharlin• 5 months ago

The Hobbit is also a whimsical children's book, and doesn't have anything to do with saving the world (a world that Tolkien had not developed anywhere near the state in we see in LoTR when he wrote The Hobbit almost 20 years earlier).

mijoharas2• 5 months ago

Somewhat whimsical, yet somewhat grappling with dark undertones, possibly due to the trauma of the war.

The moomins starts with a great flood that washes them all away to live in a new place (I think this is a parallel to the Finns moving out of Karelia after the war. I believe this was the largest migration of people that had occured at the time, and it has been described as causing generational trauma to the Finnish).

In addition I believe MoominPappa deals with issues of depression or something?

bbddg• 5 months ago

Comet in moominland is about them learning about a comet heading towards earth that they believe is going to kill them all.

antonvs• 5 months ago

It wouldn’t be “Tolkien lovers” who are upset at these, it would be people too narcissistically self-involved with their own preconceptions.

olelele• 5 months ago

There is an enormous difference in tone if you actually read any of Tove Janssons books. The animated moomin series is childish and cute. The world of the books is dark and scary and contains monsters and threats that are almost lovecraftian. The moomin trolls are victims to their surroundings and the forces of nature...

xorcist• 5 months ago

Are you sure you haven't confused these books?

One of the books you mention is about an adventure involving a treasure. The other book is about catastrophic flooding in the first book and a comet that threatens the planet in the second, if I recall correctly. Which one did you think was about saving the world and which one was about whimsical non-issues again?

Of course, you don't have to like the books. They are both children's books. But of all the possible critique this one was particularly strange.

FarmerPotato5• 5 months ago

I acquired a taste for Moomins rather late in life due to a chance encounter with Mika Pohjola who was performing Moominröster.

Collected the newspaper strips and some novels.

It was all very incongruous and absurd… but then so are salt licorice, pickled herring, and many other Scandinavian things that aren’t to everyone’s taste.

I found the Tolkien Calendar edition which used Jansson’s art. I find it adorable. No one else does.

vanderZwan• 5 months ago

It feels like a Nordic interpretation of a folk tale shared across Europe, meaning it has small differences and a local flavor. Which seems very appropriate for what Tolkien was trying to do in the first place.

NoboruWataya2• 5 months ago

These are lovely. I knew about the Moomins of course but I didn't know about the other stuff she did, some of which I really like. I wish the website had more of the illustrations but I guess there might be copyright issues.

I'd be particularly interested in seeing more of her illustrations for Alice in Wonderland and The Hunting of the Snark (the latter is a great poem if you haven't read it: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29888/29888-h/29888-h.htm)

taneq4• 5 months ago

Does anyone here not know that ‘twas brillig, when the slithey toves did gyre and gimbal in the wabe?

danparsonson• 5 months ago

Isn't that from Jabberwocky?

pnathan• 5 months ago

I'd have to see more to have a final thought.

As presented, Gollum is badly off, I reckon - missing the books textual description. The flowers are out of line.

The dragon scene is wonderful and captures the situation.

The dwarves are a bit dopy looking but I think could cohere with the early introduction in the Hobbit.

A_D_E_P_T• 5 months ago

As presented, Gollum is badly off, I reckon - missing the books textual description. The flowers are out of line.

This is addressed in the article. "Paul Gravett writes in his new book about Tove Jansson: ‘Her Gollum towered monstrously large, to the surprise of Tolkien himself, who realized that he had never clarified Gollum’s size and so amended the second edition to describe him as ‘a small, slimy creature’."

We have Jansson to thank for the clarification, it seems!

jfengel5• 5 months ago

Tolkien made significant changes to the Gollum chapter. In the first edition Gollum gives up the ring willingly. The ring was not yet the Ring, and Gollum was not yet a Hobbit.

The man took retcons as an intellectual challenge. Sometimes the retcon itself spun off a whole new story. But it makes The Hobbit really incompatible with its own sequel, even after his changes. (You have to read it as having a very unreliable narrator.)

wileydragonfly• 5 months ago

Dreadful and painfully Nordic.

B1FF_PSUVM• 5 months ago

Poor sods never know if they are getting devoured by a polar bear or not, and it shows.

boomboomsubban• 5 months ago

We're these only used in Sweden? I know I've seen some of them before, but I'm not sure if it's from decades on the internet or my school having a specific thirty year old edition of The Hobbit.

I seem to recall thinking Gollum was big, but honestly could be remembering the Shelov scene. It was long time ago.

3836293648• 5 months ago

This gets posted every few months, so you probably got it from the internet

rasjani• 5 months ago

I read Finnish version of Hobbit that had Tove's art about 40 years ago.

commieneko• 5 months ago

Those are wonderful! It's really interesting to see Jansson's take on the characters and settings. When I read _The Hobbit_ in the early 1970s, there was already a well established tradition of how to portray Tolkien's world. Jansson's seems very fresh to me.

Also of interest, and probably just as upsetting to some, is Gene Deitch's version of _The Hobbit_ which was made in the mid 1960s in an attempt to retain the movie rights. Made in 30 days!

https://youtu.be/UBnVL1Y2src?si=rpd-dOk-t4BYFP_Q

p-e-w• 5 months ago

The Hobbit is today usually viewed through the lens of The Lord of the Rings, and The Lord of the Rings is viewed with the baggage of 70 years of post-Tolkien epic fantasy culture.

Being deeply embedded in that culture myself, I must admit that these illustrations don’t appeal to me at all, and don’t match my mental imagery of the story. But I can see how they might have looked like a perfect fit to someone who read The Hobbit with a fresh eye when it was still fresh. I wish I could have read it like that.

galaxyLogic• 5 months ago

I inhaled Lord of the Rings on first reading. I lived inside it. And it had no illustrations except maps, right? But later when the movies came out they were a big disappointment for ne, they were not the world I had visited. And they were boring. Had I not read the books before, they might have been just fine.

rerdavies• 5 months ago

lolz. I am so glad you told me why it was made. Otherwise it would be completely unforgivable.

i_think_so• 5 months ago

Ugh. That video should have come with a flashing [INFORMATIONAL HAZARD] warning sign.

Tolkien fans, beware. This may ruin your day.

YeGoblynQueenne2• 5 months ago

It's quite alright. Done in a classic childrens' story illustration style, rather than the modern sleek style of CGI-heavy fantasy. Tastes may have changed a bit in the last 60 years or so.

socalgal22• 5 months ago

I'm always of two minds about this kind of stuff.

First of, the illustrations are great. I love them.

Separate though, if they don't represent the original material then why not just make some new IP instead if effectively taking a piss on someone else's?

NoboruWataya2• 5 months ago

They do represent the original material, as interpreted by the illustrator. And Tove was hardly pissing on anything - she was commissioned to illustrate a version of the book by the publisher.

socalgal22• 5 months ago

That she got permission's got nothing to do with it. Abrams got permission to turn Star Wars into a Lord of the Rings fetch quests for the secret talisman. That doesn't mean he didn't piss all over "Star Wars".

AlotOfReading• 5 months ago

I don't think it's pissing on the source material, it's adapting it.

Alastair Reynolds once expressed this sentiment in a nice way:

    I didn’t want to be slavishly bound by the earlier story. So I made the decision that House of Suns would take its cue from the events and characters in the shorter piece, but it wouldn’t be afraid to contradict them if that made for a better story.

[0] https://www.alastairreynolds.com/release/house-of-suns-2008/

rawling2• 5 months ago

Easier to say when the source is your own material.

mwkaufma• 5 months ago

The "original material" was modified significantly - Tove's illustration of Gollum, e.g., was not inconsistent with the 1937 edition she was working from, before Tolkien rewrote the scene to bring it more in-line with the version of the character from the Lord of the Rings in the second edition.

caconym_• 5 months ago

somewhat comforting to know that this kind of reflexive fan bitching about departures from canon has been around forever

iambateman• 5 months ago

It has a real “where the wild things are” feel…which is the art used to decorate my local library.

A lot of people have chosen to take the Hobbit as seriously as its older brother—-including Peter Jackson—-and have missed out on the absurd, beautiful childishness of the whole thing.

The Hobbit does a wonderful job of introducing the ideas and characters of LotR in a way which is accessible for children and I think the art presented here is a valid artistic take on a children’s book about a dragon.

sarchertech9• 5 months ago

It’s as valid as any art. But as an illustrated book, it’s lacking.

If I had read this version as a kid, I’d be extremely confused as to why Gollum was 20 feet tall and wearing a flower crown. And then I’d be mad and consider it a bad illustration. (I’m aware some people think the original version didn’t specify his size. But the 1937 text states “Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature.”)

If there’s a character in a book who is known for wearing a red shirt, you might think it’s interesting to subvert expectations and give him a green shirt. But when the picture with the green shirt appears next to text describing a red shirt, it fails as an illustration. Especially in a book meant for children.

ggm• 5 months ago

Tolkien and Jansson shared one thing: people did translations of their work which they totally hated

So it's sort-of funny that she wound up pissing him off with artwork which didn't fit his mental model, when they both experienced people trying to do the translation and failing to hit the mark.

(I think I read this of both of them, in respective biographies)

shevy-java3• 5 months ago

"I’m aware some people think the original version didn’t specify his size"

Well, he was a hobbit once, right? So a 10 meters tall Gollum makes less sense than a Gollum that has about the same size as other hobbits, give or take.

Paracompact3• 5 months ago

(I’m aware some people think the original version didn’t specify his size. But the 1937 text states “Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature.”)

This directly contradicts the article. I found the first edition online, and have determined you are mistaken.

http://searcherr.work/The%20Hobbit%201st%20ed%20(1937).pdf

Page 83: "Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum. I don't know where he came from, nor who or what he was."

Mind explaining the source of your mistake?

pkteison• 5 months ago

"a small slimy creature" was added after this picture was drawn, in the 1966 edition.

Other languages adaptions had larger gollum's also - see some at e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/vy7vij/before_the_196...

(It's difficult to find an excellent authoritative link clearly explaining that the change was in the 1966 edition - there is 'The History of The Hobbit' by John D. Rateliff, but I can't find it online)

orthoxerox• 5 months ago

If there’s a character in a book who is known for wearing a red shirt, you might think it’s interesting to subvert expectations and give him a green shirt. But when the picture with the green shirt appears next to text describing a red shirt, it fails as an illustration. Especially in a book meant for children.

Should Aragorn wear pants in the illustrations?

shevy-java3• 5 months ago

"absurd, beautiful childishness of the whole thing"

There is the bed-jumping scene, so there is childishness in the movies too. (I also hated that scene; I started to root for Sauron when I saw that scene.)

eru• 5 months ago

Apropos rooting for Sauron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer

JrProgrammer• 5 months ago

A lot of people have chosen to take the Hobbit as seriously as its older brother

Do you refer to the LOTR trilogy as The Hobbit's older brother here? I was under the impression that The Hobbit was the first book in this saga?

Steve16384• 5 months ago

Obviously true, but LOTR is also obviously more mature than The Hobbit, which I think was OP's point.

gwbas1c• 5 months ago

I was under the impression that The Hobbit was the first book in this saga?

Yes: But the Hobbit is much shorter and is a much easier read. It also was edited after LOTR was published to fix some minor plot holes.

WRT the movies: Peter Jackson added a lot to the "Hobbit" trilogy that wasn't in the book, such as the whole story arc about Gandalf when he wasn't with the dwarves, or the other wizards. The book isn't the epic that the movie makes it out to be.

KnuthIsGod• 5 months ago

"In her illustrations in Bilbo – en hobbits äventyr, Jansson concentrated on the landscapes, she was not as interested in the characters of the story.

She even made some of the characters especially tiny to elevate the landscapes.

The illustrations consisted more of her impression of the story than literal repetitions, which many Tolkien fans found unsatisfying.

According to them, Jansson overlooked many of the central characteristics of the characters.

...she edited the pictures many times to avoid them being too much like the Moomin illustrations.

However, the readers saw the illustrations as more Jansson like than truly Tolkien like."

stogot• 5 months ago

Gollum as massive creature is so inaccurate to the book that i criticise too

adzm• 5 months ago

The book never stated Gollum's size. In later revisions, Tolkien actually added that after these illustrations for that reason!

cobbzilla• 5 months ago

I love these illustrations! It’s always hard for me not to automatically conjure pictures from the Ralph Bakshi animated film when I think about The Hobbit, these give me another very cool perspective.

the_af• 5 months ago

I'm vaguely aware of what the Moomin are, yet I really like these drawings. Ok, unsure about Gollum, but the dwarves and the dragon rock.

delichon• 5 months ago

I'm a fan of Tolkien's art and have a couple of prints on my wall, The Hill and The Tree of Amalion. They have been up for years now and I haven't gotten a bit tired of them. They convey Tolkien's voice to me almost as effectively as his books. He didn't need an illustrator.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/jrr-tolkiens-estat...

https://tolkiengateway.net/w/images/2/20/J.R.R._Tolkien_-_Th...

culebron21• 5 months ago

"Snuffkin (Snusmumriken) and the ring", that's what I see. Or Mummy troll. I saw some cartoon adaptations of the LotR, never liked it much because of the dead seriousness, but this makes it carelessness, which probably could have made me read it.

shevy-java3• 5 months ago

Well ... it looks more like a midget-man than a hobbit. But what exactly is a hobbit? In the movie "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" from 2001, the hobbits shown pissed me off. When they started to jump on the bed, I started to root for Sauron. It got much better in the movie "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" from 2012 but even then they look mostly just like midget humans, with a bit of an elfish touch (and I hated the elves in the movie from 2001; the depiction was just lame). The only hobbit-like entity I liked was Gollum.

So how does a hobbit really look like? "Tolkien presented hobbits as a variety of humanity, or close relatives thereof".

So based on this, while Tove's pictures look more like a parody, I don't really see it as intrinsically wrong. It's just less of a "standard" depiction - Tolkien could have assumed hobbits to be anything but midget-humans, but they are mostly midgets with stronger feet.

1313ed01• 5 months ago

Funny that the first Swedish translation, from 1947, also had an illustration of a huge Gollum, and Tolkien already commented on that long before Tove Jansson's did her version.

The translation of the name 'Hobbit' to 'Hompe' was not the only thing that annoyed Tolkien about this edition. Already in 1948, he wrote to Rosemary, a young fan, that "the picture of Gollum in the Swedish edition of The Hobbit makes him look huge."

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Hompen

Overall seems like a weird edition.

FarmerPotato5• 5 months ago

I believe Tove Jansson also painted the color cover for the first authorized American edition of Fellowship of the Ring (1965). In _Letters_ one can read Tolkien’s reaction. He was quite taken aback, calling out the Emus (!) in the foreground. As if “ the illustrator hadn’t read my book.”

The 1973 Ballantine editions carried only Tolkien’s own paintings on the covers and slipcase.

I only learned of her involvement after becoming a huge Jansson fan. I had to take another look at the Emu.

ThisNameIsTaken• 5 months ago

It seems those were drawn by Barbara Remington [1] who didn't have time to read the books before making her illustrations. Apparently, the Lord of the Rings was in public domain in the US for a short while, so the publisher (and Tolkien) had to rush for a new 'authorized' version.

[1] https://arrgle.com/emus-and-piracy-the-story-behind-the-lord...

FarmerPotato5• 5 months ago

Oh. Well that puts the emus out to pasture. So, two illustrators Tolkien wasn’t pleased with. I see how I conflated them.

michalu• 5 months ago

Very typical arrogance of the so-called modern "artist" mind - "it was an adventure for me", getting an assignment to complement a great work of art and making it about herself.

The problem with these modern artists is they're not working hard to improve a skill, but rather keep doing more of what comes easy hoping the world maybe recognizes their "natural genius" ... as a result they go hard on pushing that one thing unique to them (whatever it is, scriblles, splashes, infantile characters) ...

And yeah let's not forget the "you just don't understand modern art" shaming.

mrbukkake• 5 months ago

this comment is very typical arrogance of the modern computer nerd raised on capeshit hahahha

EastLondonCoder• 5 months ago

This was my first literary experience, my mother read it to me when I was three years old. Seeing Janssons rendering of Smaug made me remember it was this version she read for me.

acuozzo• 5 months ago

My favorite art for The Hobbit is from the version released in the USSR.

https://www.openculture.com/2014/03/discover-soviet-era-illu...

Tove Jansson's criticized illustrations of The Hobbit (2023)

Related Stories