The Kid Who Sits Behind You Explains

The Lord of the Rings

So on account of I didn't bother to go to summer school and I read all the stuff--well, I say I read it--from last year, my teacher says "you gotta read Lord of the Rings" and I'm all "dude, I failed and that book's hella big" and he's all "challenge yourself" and I'm all thinking to myself "I'll watch the movie" but there's like three movies and I tried to watch them but I kept falling asleep--partly on account of how I was partying with my buds on New Year's Eve and this was the next day. Anyway, the power went out and my playstation wouldn't work so I figured, what the hell--I'll read it. But it isn't an "it"--it's a "them". Three frickin' books. So maybe, well, I kinda skimmed some parts.

Anyway, this Tolkien guy--JJR or JRR or JJJRRR or whatever his initials are--he was all "I finished The Hobbit and I've got all these other names I've made up I didn't get to use and geeks who live in their parents' basements everywhere need a fantasy world and a made up language to prove their geekdom so I better write three long boring books that only the geeks will love."

Well, he wrote one book of six books then they published it as three books--don't ask me why. Rather than suffer them yourself, all you need to know is:

Frodo is Bilbo's nephew. He gets the ring. He travels. People, other hobbits, a dwarf, an elf, and random temporary companions like Gandalf--who's pretty much a rip-off of Merlin--travel with him.

They climb hills, they cross rivers, they stay at inns and fancy homes and castles. They eat, they drink. They fight various creatures like orcs and ringwraiths. They travel more. They eat, fight and learn countless stupid made-up names of places, people and things. The ring is important for some reason. The creepy gollum with the speech impediment follows them. They run into some giant thinking spiders--nice rip-off by the way, JK Rowling--or should I say JKK Rowling?

Anyway, a couple thousand pages of travelling, fighting, eating, drinking and learning names later--oh, and there were these walking trees--some stuff happens in some volcano or something with the ring and the hobbit guy has his finger cut off and then goes home but it's all in trouble and then he goes somewhere else.

And besides all the stupid names, there's this language Tolkien made up. I was in math yesterday and our teacher was explaining inverse relationships, and asked for an example.

"Learning the Lord of the Rings language and getting dates in high school," I said. He wasn't impressed. Apparently he's a master at it. I notice, by looking at his hand, he's still seeking any finger bling himself--maybe that hit too close to home...

I asked him if he knew any Klingon and he sent me to the office. School sucks.