Alice in Blunderland
Ask someone what his or her favorite parody movie is and you’ll hear Blazing Saddles, Airplane!, or some other classic of the genre. But ask what their favorite parody novel is and you’ll likely get a blank stare. To help you answer this difficult, life-defining question the next time you’re asked, here are the stories of a few novels that get the last laugh.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings has sold more than 150 million copies and been translated into over 35 languages since it was first published in 1955. While it has never reached the original’s level of success, the parody novel Bored of the Rings has become something of an institution in its own right. Written by Henry Beard and Douglas Kenney, the duo who would later found National Lampoon, the book has been reprinted and updated since it was first published in 1969, including a new version printed just this year.values, leading to a spiritual reawakening and, through that, a happy ending.
Fed up with all the doom, gloom, and religion, Gibbons wrote her own version of a “loam and lovechild” by borrowing many of the common traits of the genre and turning them on their ear. Her young, female protagonist, Flora, is a Londoner that moves to the country home of relatives after the death of her parents. There she meets a myriad of eccentric characters, including her Aunt Ada Doom, the coddled matriarch of the farm, who stays secluded in the attic because of “something nasty in the woodshed” that she saw years ago. Flora begins helping her new friends and family find their own version of fulfillment, not by using traditional country values and religion, but by consulting The Higher Common Sense, a handbook of modern age concepts and sound advice.
Although it’s based on books written over 100 years ago, it’s not a requirement that a person read these sources to appreciate the comedy in Cold Comfort Farm In fact, Cold Comfort Farm has been adapted into stage plays, radio serials, and made-for-TV films more often than most other “loam and lovechild” books. In fact, the most famous film version was produced as recently as 1995, starring well-known actors like Kate Beckinsale (Underworld), Rufus Sewell (Dark City), Joanna Lumley (Absolutely Fabulous), Ian McKellan (Lord of the Rings), and Stephen Fry (Jeeves and Wooster).
Dis-Honorable Mention
This is, of course, only a small sampling of the novels out there that are poking fun at best-sellers. Here are a few more that might pique your interest:
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