Bored of the Rings

1969, possibly first paperback edition, from Signet
The Harvard Lampoon
(more specifically, written by Henry N. Beard and Douglas C. Kenney, cover by Michael K. Frith, map by William S. Donnell, and illustration on page 81 by Peter W. Johnson)
Bored of the Rings
Original price $1.25, purchase price 90 cents
Very worn paperback
B

Remember how I said that The Edible Woman had the juvenile humor of "I felt confused.  'I feel confused,' I said"?  Well, imagine that cubed.  Throw in a lot of jokes involving sex, drugs, and toilets, mix in some dated brand names (Serutan for Saruman), a Richard Armour-like puncturing of cliches (as with Frito's "knitted" brow), and a great deal of silliness, and you get this parody.  I was kind of bored by Lord of the Rings the three or four times I attempted it, as I noted in my Silas Marner review, and I finally had to just skim to get through the trilogy.  The 160 pages here are also an acceptable substitute.

Even at that length, it does get a bit tired by the end.  Still, there are parts that make me laugh out loud even on the umpteenth reading.  The footnote "Either Arglebargle IV or someone else" is one I used to quote.  The best of the poems and songs is the one that ends, "A silver tear rolled down her cheek/ As she bussed home by herself/ The same thing happened twice last week/ (Oh, Heaven help the Working-elf!)"  And the map is awesome, from the Isles of Langerhans to the Tiny "X"-Shaped Forest to the Land of the People with Medium Size Teeth to the Intermittent Mountains.  If the rest of the book were that good, I'd give it a B+ or A-.