Bored of
the Rings is a parody
of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. This short novel was
written by Henry N. Beard and Douglas C. Kenney, who later founded National
Lampoon. It was published in 1969 by Signet for the Harvard Lampoon. In 2013, an
audio version was produced by Orion Audiobooks, narrated by Rupert Degas.
The parody generally follows the outline of The Lord of the Rings, including the preface, the prologue, poetry, and songs, while making light of what Tolkien made serious (e.g., "He would have finished him off then and there, but pity stayed his hand. It's a pity I've run out of bullets, he thought, as he went back up the tunnel..."). Names and words in the various languages are parodied with brand names that mimic their sounds (for example, Moxie and Pepsi replace Merry and Pippin). There are many topical references, including once-popular brand names. It has the distinction for a parody of having been continuously in print since it was first published.
Aside from the text itself, the book includes five elements that parody common features of mass-market books:
The Signet first edition cover, a parody of the 1965 Ballantine paperback cover by Barbara Remington, was drawn by Muppets designer Michael K. Frith. Current publications have different artwork by Douglas Carrel, since the paperback cover art for Lord of the Rings prevalent in the 60s, then famous, is now obscure. William S. Donnell drew the "parody map" of Lower Middle Earth.
Overview
The parody generally follows the outline of The Lord of the Rings, including the preface, the prologue, poetry, and songs, while making light of what Tolkien made serious (e.g., "He would have finished him off then and there, but pity stayed his hand. It's a pity I've run out of bullets, he thought, as he went back up the tunnel..."). Names and words in the various languages are parodied with brand names that mimic their sounds (for example, Moxie and Pepsi replace Merry and Pippin). There are many topical references, including once-popular brand names. It has the distinction for a parody of having been continuously in print since it was first published.
Aside from the text itself, the book includes five elements that parody common features of mass-market books:
- A laudatory back cover review, written at
Harvard, possibly by the authors themselves.
- Inside cover reviews which are entirely
contrived, concluding with a quote by someone affiliated with the
publication Our Loosely Enforced Libel Laws.
- A list of other books in the
"series", none of which exist.
- A double page map which has almost nothing to
do with the events in the text.
- The first text a browsing reader is liable to
see purports to be a salacious sample from the book, but the episode never
happens in the main text, nor does anything else of that tone: the book
has no explicit sexual content.
The Signet first edition cover, a parody of the 1965 Ballantine paperback cover by Barbara Remington, was drawn by Muppets designer Michael K. Frith. Current publications have different artwork by Douglas Carrel, since the paperback cover art for Lord of the Rings prevalent in the 60s, then famous, is now obscure. William S. Donnell drew the "parody map" of Lower Middle Earth.
Afterword by the Blog Author
I saw this parody on the bookshelves when it came out in
1969. I laughed so hard, especially at the map of Lower Middle Earth, that I
have been unable to take Tolkien seriously ever since. I can’t read his books, suspend my disbelief,
or otherwise pretend to respect the pretentious folderol of his imaginary
dystopia. And, yes, Folderol itself is
one of the shires on the included map of Lower Middle Earth, along with Tudor,
Fordor and the Armpit of the Nation.
It’s a laughing stock; Bored of the
Rings is therefore a triumph of 1960s literature.
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