The Chronicles of Blarnia

by Michael Gerber

‘This is all the land of Blarnia,’ said the Faun. ‘From the traffic light in the western woods to the great castle of Cair Amel on the eastern sea, bordered on the south by Oz, on the west by Middle Earth, and on the north by Made-upistan.’

‘I – I got in through the wardrobe,’ said Loo.

Mr Dumbness looked at her in disbelief. ‘You got here through a wardrobe?’ he asked. ‘What are you, high?’

The explanatory title to this book is ‘The Lying Bitch in the Wardrobe’. This is all you need to know about it before diving in

A much loved classic of fantasy literature written by a grumpy, pipe smoking don in a smelly tweedy jacket being turned into a massive worldwide cinema hit. Where have we seen that before? Lord of the Rings was, of course, immense when it got the Hollywood treatment. Narnia will match it. We sold more than 300,000 copies of BORED OF THE RINGS and followed this 160,000 sales of two associated Tolkien parodies. Now Mike Gerber moves on from his 500,000 copy BARRY TROTTER sucess to line up the next big target.

Genres: Fantasy, Humor

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Parodist, author of Barry Trotter series, parodies of Harry Potter books. Also known as Mike Gerber or Michael Allen Gerber.

For the business author, see Michael E. Gerber.

Reviews

[[ J o ] · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the same vain as the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings parodies, this tries quite catastrophically badly to be anything but a pile of trite. At the time it was vaguely amusing, with one particular running gag being something I remember with fondness, but truly the whole series took a severe downward spiral since then. I leave two stars for the memory, and the fact that it was grammatically correct with some pretty decent punctuation usage, and I'd rather read this ten times over some other things, but really I think we should mourn the tree that this fouled.

[Jan Plíšek · Rating 1 out of 5]

bylo to daleko horší, než si z dětství pamatuju. ale užil jsem si to

[Unsolicited Book Reports]

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0/10

Quite literary (‘literally’ surely? Ed.) a waste of time. Offensive, pathetic, mean-spirited, immature, and howlingly unfunny.

Even with CensorVision, this pitiful book contained language and sentiments that were objectionable and repulsive. The words ‘b*stard’, ‘w*nker’, and ‘bansh*te’ (whatever that is) were used. Further, elves urinating on cereal, children tripping on psychedelic banana peels, confusion when pointing out (“we prefer the term”) ‘dyke’ beavers, a centaur’s erection, and the not infrequent references to getting socked “in the goolies” completed this drudgery. Critically, the novel’s story was creatively bankrupt and relied too greatly on references to its source text, Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, and others. Ultimately, the story’s ‘humour’ was based on characters that were stupid, fat, or on sexual inuendos of some type. While the text was filled with unamusing recurring ‘jokes’, such as Loo’s deathwish, I did chuckle momentarily when the notion of a parliament for Blarnia was introduced and the inevitable factions that resulted. “Blame the author. I’ve found you really can’t trust him at all, even on the most basic stuff”.

[Tigereno · Rating 1 out of 5]

Holy moly. I started a Goodreads account just so I could write a review on this book. I've read the "Barry Trotter" books and assumed this would be along the same lines and I would get a few giggles, but I was wrong. I found myself struggling to pick up this book to finish it. It's a small size (same as the Barry Trotter and The Soddit style parodies) but felt like such a slog to get through. I didn't enjoy any of the characters, the jokes fell flat, the ending was rushed, and the plot was absent.

[Squeaky · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Hither come and suck a pipe, Turn thy brain to cheese and tripe!" Whoops, wrong book. I borrowed the book from someone who had purchased it for a particular reason, but it turned out they did not need it for that reason, but I wanted to read it. It was no Bored Of The Rings, but it was OK.

[Boyana Yordanova · Rating 1 out of 5]

i am sorry i was stuck on a longass train ride with nothing on hand but this book. it's trite, it's unfunny and is about as good as parody as the scary movies got on with the years. if there was a negative star rating i would give it one.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

A winter/christmas theme for the book club pick. I decided to revisit a book I got fifteen years ago, now I've matured a bit I didnt find it as comical as I did back then. But still alright for a quick read.

[Renata · Rating 1 out of 5]

Czy często zdarza Wam się DNF? Przyznaję, że ja porzucam książki ekstremalnie rzadko, ale będzie trzeba to zmienić. Szkoda mi czasu na słabe lektury, gdy tyle innych czeka. Dzisiaj o moim ostatnim DNFie, czyli "Opowieściach z Blarnii" - tak Blarnii. Jest to parodia "Opowieści z Narnii".

Uwielbiam parodie! Te filmowe mogłabym oglądać w kółko, a moim top jest "Poznaj moich Spartan", i liczyłam że i przy książkowej będę się równie dobrze bawić, tym bardziej, że kiedyś czytałam parodię "Zmierzchu" ("Zmrok") i nie była zła. Jak bardzo się przeliczyłam wiem tylko ja. Zacznijmy może od tego, że nie mogłam się pozbyć z głowy filmowej parodii i czytając wyobraźnia podsuwała mi tamtych bohaterów. Okazuje, się, że na początku właśnie to ratowało "Opowieści z Blarnii", bo gdy tylko się otrząsnęłam ze skojarzenia z filmem, dotarło do mnie co mam przed oczami. Było tam kilka żartów, z których się szczerze uśmiałam, ale cała reszta była zwyczajnie żenująca, a ja potrzebowałam co kilka rozdziałów odpocząć, bo przestawałam trawić ten tekst. I jakby było mało, że książka próbowała być zabawna, a wyszła żałosna, autor postanowił tam jeszcze wsadzić dialogi narratora z bohaterami, np. poganiane ich itd. Nie dałam rady, moje zdrowie psychiczne jest ważniejsze. Zostanę przy filmie - "Wielkie kino" i tak to już na zawsze będzie dla mnie jedyna akceptowalna parodia "Opowieści z Narnii", nawet jeśli też ma gorsze momenty.

Moja ocena 1/10 - DNF

[KarhuAnderson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dunno whether I should add or deduct half-a-star for the hints of a decent parody buried within.

[Antonio N · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5/5 ⭐ osobliwe i... obrzydliwe.

[Ruth Casey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slightly funny book, my type of satire humour however the ending was very rushed. Would not read again.

[Matthew Harwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

A weird and bizarre parody of a literary classic. The book is filled with odd and strange characters and elements that make it an ok read but not one that I would rush to read again.

[J.P. Harker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Marginally better than the Barry Trotter book, some funny moments and nods to the original

[Aki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wer mich kennt, weiss, dass ich ein großer Fan von Parodien bin, also hat auch diese ihrer Weg in mein Bücherregal gefunden.
Oftmals hat mich dieses Buch zum Schmunzeln gebracht, wenn die Kinder der Familie Perversie ihre Abenteuer in Blarnia erleben.

Der Humor des Autors ist oftmals sehr bissig und.. schwarz. Wer sich damit anfreunden kann, wird seine helle Freude mit diesem Buch haben.
Nicht nur "Die Chroniken von Narnia" werden hier auf due Schippe genommen, sondern auch andere Filme wie zb. Alice im Wunderland, selbst der Weihnachtsmann hat seinen Gastauftritt.

Oftmals habe ich aber auch einfach nur die Hände über dem Kopf zusammen schlagen wollen, gab es doch Szenen, die absolut nicht nachvollziehbar waren, auch in einer Parodie nicht.
Ein kleines Lesevergnügen war es aber allemals.

3 von 5 Sonnenblumen.

[Nighteye · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a bad book and I'm happy that I didn't give more then 10 crowns for it at a second hand-shop... It's a parody written not to be fun but to be provocative, but I can't say that it is as bad as the LOTR-parody I've read, it's better then that one. That's crap beats the most of the bad things I've read and to compare it to this makes this book acceptable.

[Kim · Rating 1 out of 5]

This reminds me of movies like Date Movie and Superhero Movie. All it does is take the cheap shots and is never really clever about it's jokes. It was a pain to read and I'm glad it wasn't very long.

[Charmteaser · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really expected something more. This book had some good moments and good points about "Narnia" but it tired me. As parody, it's not bad but cannot be compared with parodies like "Who's Killing the Great Writers of America?" or even "Nightlight: A Parody".

[Trish · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm annoyed I have to give it a star rating. It's not deserving of even that.

Slowly told, boring, not funny, and dreadful to read. Don't waste your time as I did.

The only thing that made me chuckle was "The Lying Bitch in Wardrobe".

[Rebecca Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

a funny story that changes the story of narnia to blarnia

[Mimi]

sucked. got tired of the foul language. i thought it would be funny at first but it sounds like it was written by try hards. sorry, no offence.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've got nothin to read, soo i gues m re-reading this shit xD

[Ola · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute flashback to the childhood... in a little more adult way :)

[Mikael Mäkinen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Olipa puisevaa muka-hauskaa tekstiä. Meinasin jättää kesken, mutta sain luettua loppuun.