Beard & Kenney : Bored of the Rings (Signet) [Paperback]

First published in 1969, Bored of the Rings quickly became a cult book for its relentless, slapstick pastiche of The Lord of the Rings. Gollancz's 2001 edition marks the first appearance in Britain and in hardback.

Authors Beard and Kenny carry irreverence cheerfully beyond the borders of good taste. For some, it's a hilarious antidote to uncritical worship of Tolkien. For others, it's outright blasphemy. You choose...

Here's the formula. Take the rough plot of The Lord of the Rings. Give everyone daft names: Bilbo Baggins becomes Dildo Bugger, Sauron is Sorhed, and the hobbits Merry, Pippin and Sam are now the boggies Moxie, Pepsi and Spam. Make them all cowardly, dumb, self-serving and/or insane. Cram Middle Earth with droll American brand names, some now rather dated...

Bored of the Rings lurches drunkenly through Tolkien's narrative, scrawling graffiti on noble citadels and firing off gags with such machine-gun speed that something hits the funny bone on almost every page. A warning: "The halberd has fallen! The fewmets have hit the windmill!" A doom-laden prophecy: "Five-eleven's your height, one-ninety your weight, you cash in your chips around page eighty-eight."

Some pokes at the original are quite shrewd. The tiresomely lyrical Tom Bombadil mutates with hideous plausibility into dope freak Tim Benzedrine: "Toke-a-lid! Smoke-a-lid! Pop the mescalino!" Tortuous arguments about the disposal of the Ring are neatly condensed to: "'Alas,' explained Goodgulf." (Guess who?)

Cheap laughs abound despite occasional misfires. Even the map is chuckleworthy. But as the US paperback jacket warned, those who revere Tolkien "will not touch this gobbler with a ten-foot battle-lance". --David Langford --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

300,000 copies sold in since 2001! --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Sometimes childish, sometimes rude, always clever and always very, very funny, this book has delighted most, and outraged a few, Tolkien fans in the US for more than40 years. Pulling in references to popular culture and fantasy literature as a whole, this is a killingly effective parody of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. From the dreary Goddamn (Gollum) to the feckless Arrowroot (Aragorn), the bungling Goodgulf (Gandalf) to the timid, mean-minded boggies Frito (Frodo) and Dildo (Bilbo), no character is safe. Fleeing the Nozdrul, bored by acid-casualty Tim Benzedrine and harassed throughout by the minions of Sorhed, the fellowship move through a Middle Earth like no other. Short, sharp and very much to the point, even Tolkien would be hard-pressed to surpress a giggle at BORED OF THE RINGS. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

The Harvard Lampoon was essentially Douglas Kenney and Henry Beard. They wrote BORED OF THE RINGS when they were students at Harvard. They then went on to form tTHE NATIONAL LAMPOON, a satirical institution in the '70s. Kenney died in 1980. Beard lives in the Hamptons in the USA. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.