[A_D_E_P_T]

> 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!

[jfengel]

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.)

[boringg]

Clarifying question -- what do you mean Gollum was not yet a Hobbit? I don't think he ever was - but a river folk before the ring deprived him wasn't he? I never read first edition so I suspect there are some differences as you allude. (ring not being the ring).

Actually - in the creative process did he kick off the Hobbit then expand into the world building as an after thought and turn the one ring into this wild expansive creative endeavor? I always assumed it had been pre-built in his mind then spilled out in ink (As a sequence of events).

[singpolyma3]

As I understand it he planned to do more retcons but the publisher just sort of ran with the example he sent them.

[duskwuff]

> You have to read it as having a very unreliable narrator.

Perhaps even Bilbo himself. :) One can imagine him telling a heavily fictionalized version of his adventures to some impressionable young hobbits.