Testing the Narrator’s Assertion

The narrator of The Hobbit tells us

“Now, it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway.”

Chapter 3, p.60

Is this true? We note that narrators of fiction are not universally applauded for their veracity, and subject the assertion to proper statistical verification.

Experimental Approach

Our team of Idiosophical researchers:

1. Counted the number of pages in each chapter (a matter of reading the Table of Contents);
2. Classified each chapter as to whether the events in it are Good or Uncomfortable, Palpitating, and Gruesome (a matter of arch opinion).

Results

Figure 1. Histogram of chapter lengths by type

A visual inspection of the histograms in Figure 1 shows them not to be obviously distinct.  Statistically, Pearson’s χ² test was applied to distinguish the two.  The null hypothesis that the two histograms are the same is not rejected by the data: χ² = 16.8 on 19 degrees of freedom; p=0.6.

The outlier at 35 pages is “The Council of Elrond”.  Although listening to ancient blowhards relate the history of the world for five or six hours is uncomfortable, the specification was “uncomfortable, palpitating, and gruesome”, which the council was not.  Especially for us, who can set the book down and go re-fill our glass any time we need to.

Conclusion

We infer from these data that the narrator was practicing upon our credulity.

Works Cited

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Hobbit. New York: Ballantine Books, 1965.
——— The Lord of the Rings. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002.