The Chronicles of Blarnia: The Lying Bitch in the Wardrobe
The Chronicles of Blarnia: The Lying Bitch in the Wardrobe is a parody of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, written by Michael Gerber. It was released on September 30, 2005.
Plot
The book starts with the Perversies being unwrapped after being sent through the post. It is revealed that they have been rented to a mad scientist (the Professor) for medical experiments. While searching for a pommel horse with which to escape, Loo enters a wardrobe and ingests concentrated banana peel extract. This causes her to enter Blarnia, wherein she meets the faun Dumbness, who promptly tried to abduct her, but gave up after his barbiturate laced food failed to have any effect on Loo beyond causing her to throw up. Failing to understand that Dumbness was trying to abduct her, despite Dumbness telling her this, she snaps out of her hallucination and tells her siblings what had happened. They doubt her experience. At this point they hear the Professor coming, and Pete and Sue attempt to run past them. They get caught and given hormones, causing Pete to grow breasts and Sue a beard. Meanwhile, Loo again entered the wardrobe and Ed, after considerable prodding by the author, follows her.
Loo visits Dumbness and Ed meets the Wide Witch, who he is immediately infatuated with. When they get back Ed does not reveal the fact that he had been to Blarnia. The Perversies ask the Professor about Blarnia; he tells them that Blarnia is real. However, he only does this to convince the Perversies to believe in it, at which point he reveals that the meeting had been taped for a reality television show. He tells the Perversies that Loo's experience was most likely caused by hallucinogens. After the Professor forbids them to visit Blarnia again, the Perversies become determined to go there.
While the Professor is distracted by journalists the Perversies sneak in, whereupon the meet two lesbian beavers named Naomi and Ruth who tell them about the Wide Witch, and that they were to meet Asthma the black cat at the Stone Bathtub. Ed runs off and tells the Wide Witch what happened. The Perversies travel there, on the way meeting Father Christmas, who has become an alcoholic after a century of unemployment. He gives Pete a rubber dog bone, Sue a Mardi Gras whistle and Loo a bottle of healing elixir. The Perversies meet Asthma, and the Wide Witch offers to trade Ed for Asthma. Asthma agrees, and the Wide Witch and her minions embarrass him to death by shaving and bathing him, then forcing him to endure a mock tea party with the Wide Witch. Loo revives him with the elixir that Father Christmas gave her, however the populace had decided that the Wide Witch would make a better ruler, and Asthma appoints the Perversies as kings and queens with the Witch as Prime Minister. The Perversies rule for many years, until as a prank one of their subjects told them that the White Stag, who grants wishes, has been sighted. While the Perversies are hunting, the drug wears off and they return to the real world, with the professor waiting for them.
Themes
One clever aspect of this paraody is that it explicitly explores the themes of the original book, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. This book does not merely make fun of Narnia, but is a metafiction about allegorical meaning of Narnia. Ed in particular is aware that the children are stuck inside a "thinly disguided allegory". In one scene the children ask Asthma why he has come as a sickly cat rather than a lion. Asthma responds that if he had come as a lion, the reader would have thought it was all about being strong and fierce, but as a sickly cat, he comes closer to the meekness of Christ. The absence of a final battle also mocks the violence in the original book.
Characters
Pete Perversie
Pete is the oldest of the Perversie siblings, and also the most violent. He is the Perversie family's de facto bookmaker due to his unique ability to make everyone else pay up. He has been rejected by every public school in the United Kingdom, however Sue has sewn him a school uniform and, before being rented to the Professor, he attended "school" in the basement.
Sue Perversie
Sue, the second oldest Perversie, is very average and incredibly tedious. She has a fear of "Srebnians"; despite this she is probably the most mentally stable of the Perversies. She spends most of her time looking after Loo, specifically preventing her from killing herself.
Ed Perversie
Ed is the second youngest of the Perversies as well as the smartest. He is determined to become rich and powerful; to this end he leaves himself memos by speaking into his index finger, his parents having refused to buy him a voice recorder. He enjoys tormenting Pete.
Loo Perversie
Loo is the youngest Perversie. She is suicidal, one doctor calling her "a genius of self-annihilation". Ed gave her the nickname "Loo" in homage to multiple incidents involving Loo locking herself in a portable toilet. She is eventually cured through the use of drugs, however this takes place in a dream caused by hallucinogens, and it is not clear if this applies to the real world.
Naomi
Naomi is one of the two beavers who help the Perversies. She is the beaver who finds the Perversies when they first arrive in Blarnia. Naomi and her lesbian partner Ruth have two sons called Chip and Woody.
Ruth
Ruth is another beaver and is Naomi's lesbian partner. She believes that two logs are her sons and calls them Chip and Woody. Naomi however does not believe that the logs are alive but humours Ruth by treating them as children.
