Bored of the Rings: A Parody($15.00Value)

Description

First published in 1969, the New York Times bestseller Bored of the Rings is back—and just in time for the major motion picture release of The Hobbit . This classic parody of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional universe is a timeless comedic masterpiece. The classic parody of The Lord of the Rings is back! With a brand-new “boreword” by Henry Beard. The Power almighty rests in this Lone Ring. The Power, alrighty, for doing your Own Thing. If broken or busted, it cannot be remade If found, send to Sorhed (the postage is prepaid). It’s up to Boggie Frito Bugger and his band of misfits—including inept wizard Goodgulf Grayteeth, halfwit Spam Gangree, twins Moxie and Pepsi, and Arrowroot of Arrowshirt—to carry the Great Ring to Fordor and cast it into the Zazu Pits. Can they avoid death by hickey tree and escape the dread ballhog? Can the fellowship overcome the narcs and Nozdruls hounding their every move and save Lower Middle Earth once and for all? Yes, of course—this isn’t Hamlet, you know. The Harvard Lampoon debuted in February 1876 and is the world’s longest continually published humor magazine. The Harvard Lampoon is also the author of Nightlight and The Hunger Pains . Visit HarvardLampoon.com. Bored of the Rings a Parody FOREWORD Though we cannot with complete candor state, as does Professor T., that “the tale grew in the telling,” we can allow that this tale (or rather the necessity of hawking it at a bean a copy) grew in direct proportion to the ominous dwindling of our bank accounts at the Harvard Trust in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This loss of turgor in our already emaciated portfolio was not, in itself, cause for alarm (or “alarum” as Professor T. might aptly put it), but the resultant threats and cuffed ears received at the hands of creditors were. Thinking long on this, we retired to the reading lounge of our club to meditate on this vicissitude. The following autumn found us still in our leather chairs, plagued with bedsores and appreciably thinner, but still without a puppy biscuit for the lupine pest lolling around the front door. It was at this point that our palsied hands came to rest on a dog-eared nineteenth printing of kindly old Prof. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Dollar signs in our guileless eyes, we quickly ascertained that it was still selling like you know whats. Armed to the bicuspids with thesauri and reprints of international libel laws, we locked ourselves in the Lampoon squash court with enough Fritos and Dr Pepper to choke a horse. (Eventually the production of this turkey actually required the choking of a small horse, but that’s another story entirely.) Spring found us with decayed teeth and several pounds of foolscap covered with inky, illegible scrawls. A quick rereading proved it to be a surprisingly brilliant satire on Tolkien’s linguistic and mythic structures, filled with little takeoffs on his use of Norse tales and wicked phoneme fricatives. A cursory assessment of the manuscript’s sales appeal, however, convinced us that dollarwise the thing would be better employed as tinder for the library fireplace. The next day, handicapped by near-fatal hangovers and the loss of all our bodily hair (but that’s another story), we sat down at two supercharged, fuel-injected, 345-hp Smith-Coronas and knocked off the opus you’re about to read before tiffin. (And we take tiffin pretty durn early in these parts, buckaroo.) The result, as you are about to see for yourself, was a book as readable as Linear A and of about the same literary value as an autographed gatefold of St. Simon Stylites. “As for any inner meanings or ‘message,’” as Professor T. said in his foreword, there is none herein except that which you may read into it yourself. (Hint: What did P. T. Barnum say was “born every minute”?) Through this book, we hope, the reader may find deeper insights not only into the nature of literary piracy but into his own character as well. (Hint: What is missing from this famous quotation? “A ______ and his ______ soon are ______.” You have three minutes. Ready, set, go!) Bored of the Rings has been issued in this form as a parody. This is very important. It is an attempt to satirize the other books, not simply to be mistaken for them. Thus, we must strongly remind you that this is not the real thing! So if you’re about to purchase this copy thinking it’s about the Lord of the Rings, then you’d better put it right back onto that big pile of remainders where you found it. Oh, but you’ve already read this far, so that must mean that—that you’ve already bought . . . oh dear . . . oh my . . . (Tote up another one on the register, Jocko. “Ching!”) Lastly, we hope that those of you who have read Prof. Tolkien’s remarkable trilogy already will not be offended by our little spoof of it. All fooling aside, we consider ourselves honored to be able to make fun of such an impressive, truly masterful work of genius and imagination. After all, that is the most i