Travis Prinzi writes about Tolkien making the reader his fairy tale in The Hobbit. “At this point,” Prinzi says, “about 2/3 of the way into the book, Tolkien makes a very deliberate story transition: ‘…we are now drawing near the end of the eastward journey and coming to the last and greatest adventure, so we must hurry on’ (end of chapter 9, ‘Barrels out of Bond’).” What happens next is curious.
This is a essay well worth reading. I think it shows how our approach to a piece of writing affects what we get out of it. I read Hobbit just to gather background for LOTR… thinking it ‘just’ a children’s story, and missed entirely the dimension our author brings up.