Thursday, January 22, 2009

Il Signore Dei Tranelli, by The Harvard Lampoon

This is the Italian translation of "Bored of the Rings," a parody of one of the best books I've ever read, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien.

As all parodies, this too was meant to be amusing, but I felt like it only mildly succeeded. In the book's preface, the authors mention how they sent a copy to Tolkien and asked for permission of parodying his opus before publication. He did give them his blessing, but also told them he didn't think their work was particularly funny. I'd have to agree with the professor, despite the huge success this parody apparently had.

I do want to point out that I feel like a lot of the funny parts were lost in translation, and that perhaps the original would be funnier, but I only found myself chuckling here and there.

Yes, the new names of characters and locations are often funny, but I expected to be laughing out loud most of the time, and I wasn't. I guess that maybe I just expected too much.

And it's not like I was offended or anything, just because I loved Tolkien's work so much, it's just that I didn't find this funny.

Would I recommend it? Barely.

Grade: 6

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