I don’t know half of you - he divides the group of Hobbits into two halves
half as well as I should like - one half, he doesn’t feel he knows well enough; this is something he regrets
and I like less than half of you - he divides the group into a majority and minority
half as well as you deserve - of the minority, Bilbo feels he doesn’t give them enough credit and they are in fact great Hobbits and deserved more of him.
Would you agree with this analysis? My brain always hurts a bit when I think about it.
It’s intended to make your brain hurt, O son of Arathorn. It’s not an insult; it’s a pseudo-riddle–pseudo because it’s not really meant to be solved.
The toast was not extemporaneous. Bilbo was easily the smartest resident of the Shire; only Frodo and Merry came close to matching him. (Yeah, yeah, Buckland was only kinda-sorta in the Shire. Bite me. ) I honestly think a big part of what he was doing in the party prep was writing a ridiculous post that would leave people confused.
ETA: But consider also the notes he appended to the gifts he left the non-Frodo heirs.
Except that, if the people being referred to deserve to be liked better than he does, he is criticizing himself, not them.
And since those people are less than half of the Hobbits, then he likes more than half of them at least as well as they deserve, so to them it’s a compliment.
It’s just a brain-twister. He considered claiming that he had discoverd a new mathematical proof based on the Pythagorean theorem but no one had yet discovered higher maths.
I always read it as complimentary, like the OP states, the only few he doesn’t like, is only because he doesn’t know them well enough. The insult Bilbo crafted comes later, when he mentions the tally of attendees, deliberately chosen to match his age. That really pisses some people off, “What, he only invited me to make the guest number match his age?”
I always figured 'tho, anyone truly offended was arrogant, and too dumb to even be quiet when a puzzle is too complicated for them. You just had the best outdoor party of the year, abundant food, dancing, drinking, and a wizard came, and he bought fireworks, and they’re the kind that are magically animated dragons. And you’re going to bitch about old Bilbo’s puns?
Then again, doesn’t he tell them that he invited 111(or was it his age plus Frodo’s?) guests and a lot of them begin to realize they were only invited to get the number up there.
Alternatively, since the “half as well as you deserve” is applied to less than half the audience (and Bilbo never says how much less), it means that he likes the majority of them more than half as well as they deserve (at least). So less than half of them are definitely worthy of more regard than he gives them. The rest could range from “I don’t like you as well as you deserve, but close enough” to “I like you precisely as well as you deserve” to “I like you better than you deserve…and I despise you”.
It could plausibly be taken as “I hate most of you, and rightly so!” The fact that he claimed he’d like to know half of them better weighs against this extreme interpretation, and I doubt Bilbo meant it that harshly.
I think it’s a beautifully multi-valued toast, which is capable of simultaneously complimenting those most worthy of compliment and insulting those who are unworthy.
I always thought that if you diagram it out, logically, it works out to a compliment to the populations as a whole. He was just being playful and making them work for it.
That makes sense. Bilbo is the eccentric hobbit who just once in his life went off and had an adventure, which makes him slightly disreputable among the respectable stay-at-home hobbits of the Shire, and he returns the dislike, because they’re all so respectable and stolid and dull.
“I like [less than half of] you less than half as well as you deserve.”
The bracketed section singles out a minority. Of that minority, he says, “I like you less than half as well as you deserve.” In other words, he feels they deserve to be much better-liked than they are, from his perspective. He may like or dislike them, but either way, he thinks they deserve better.
This is distinct from your interpretation, which (using a similar approach) would break down as
“I like less than half of you [less than half as well as you deserve].”
with the bracketed section somehow getting applied to the majority, which is the group specifically excluded from the statement by the unbracketed section.
I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve - pretty hard to interpret this anyway other than as an insult. Do the math and what he’s saying is “I don’t like some of you as much as I should.”
And his opinion on the rest is ambiguous. Does he like them more then he likes the first group? Or does he like them as little as the first group but figures they don’t deserve to be liked any better?
) I honestly think a big part of what he was doing in the party prep was writing a ridiculous post that would leave people confused.