One of my favourite dialogs in the book was where the second mate admonished the cook about how to properly do a whale steak. "I’ll tell you what to do so as n

One of my favourite dialogs in the book was where the second mate admonished the cook about how to properly do a whale steak. "I’ll tell you what to do so as not to spoil it by overdoing. Hold the steak in one hand, and show a live coal to it with the other; that done, dish it; d’ye hear?" It's these small passages that make the book. Tolkien is another prime example of an author who happily diverges away from the story at hand, bursting into songs and poems; any wonder that LotR is such a popular and often reread book? Or the Hobbit which is quite a short novel, spending pages telling riddles!