FOOL
Christopher Moore
William Morrow
Fiction
ISBN: 9780060590314
King Lear. Considered one of William Shakespeare's crowning achievements. A tragedy that examines the nature of familial relations and human suffering. Murder, intrigue, disinherited daughter, selfish other daughters, betrayals, war, suicide. Hardly comic relief.
Until Christopher Moore gets his mitts on it, that is.
With the release of FOOL, Moore picks up his copy of King Lear, dusts it off, opens it up, and smacks it around and gets its attention. He then proceeds to take the play and, while keeping its core, turn it on its ear in the distinctly humorous way that only he has been able to do.
Pocket, the fool in question, is, of course, Lear's fool. In this stylized retelling of the play, Pocket is the character through whom we will experience all of the aforementioned anguish, but this time it is dripping in hilarity. One would expect such a thing when the story is told from the view of a fool. But do not be fooled into believing that such souls are not necessary, for Pocket is more than a joke machine serving at the feet of a dottering old king. He is wickedly entertaining, true, but even more so, he is wickedly devious and brilliant, weaving his way through the story to effect changes and secure a positive outcome.
As I'm sure everyone knows, nothing ever goes as planned, and his little ploys and machinations become multiplied tenfold as he tries to shore it all up, assisted by myriad bumblers and buffoons along the way.
Moore presents FOOL in an easy style, making it a quick read. Gone is the plodding work needed to get through Shakespeare. Here, you open up and begin laughing at Pocket's wit, at times even finding yourself shocked at his lecherous mindset, and you will also meet/recognize characters and references to other Shakespeare plays (the three Macbeth witches, anyone?).
As always, Moore does a fantastic job of working his comic genius, letting the novel drift toward slapstick before reigning it all back in with intelligent satire. He makes use of Shakespearian verbiage, archaic slang and other Old English vocabulary foibles. Then he explains them all with laughable footnotes that, oddly, do not at all distract from the main tale.
Ultimately, one could call FOOL irreverent. That would be a mistake. Anyone who undertakes to dip into it will be able to very quickly and clearly see the real admiration Moore has for the Shakespearian source material. This is certainly no mockery, however foolish and bawdy it unfolds, but rather a work so well crafted that it serves to infuse that old source with a new enjoyment.
--- Reviewed by Stephen Hubbard
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