Christopher Moore has become synonymous with taking serious topics like death and Jesus and lampooning them until his reader keels over laughing. His newest book Fool takes on the dry subject of Shakespeare and turns it into a new masterpiece.
The Fool Our Hero
Anyone who has read Shakespeare's great work King Lear will remember the Fool. He alone appears to be the only voice of reason and balanced judgment during the entire play. Christopher Moore takes the reason and good judgment and turns it into pure comedy.
Fool is a new take on King Lear and is a unique retelling of the play entirely from the perspective of Pocket, Lear's fool. Moore retains the same plot development from the original King Lear but with his own splash of comedy. In his black fool outfit, fool scepter called Jones, and the always trusting fool-in-training Drool, Pocket has a team of characters outside of the classic play to help him along his way.
Besides following the original plot line there are a series of new side plots. The major side plot is ongoing from the beginning of the book. Every noble wants to kill Pocket. Unlike everyone else in the palace court, Pocket is sarcastic and cruel to everyone during a time when being uncouth would get you killed immediately. Quickly, this plot line grows enthralling and unstoppably hilarious.
The Racy Side of Pocket
A major theme throughout the book is sex. Straight, unadulterated sex. As oppose to Christopher Moore’s bestseller Lamb that chronicles the lost years of Jesus, where sex toes the line given the touchy subject matter of a major religious figure, Moore seems to let his hair down. Pocket is thrown into awkward sexual situations with every one of Lear’s daughters at one point or another in the book. Not to mention a particular episode at a convent.
In a particularly riotous scene, Pocket is found in bed with one of Lear’s daughters and forced to stand trial in Lear’s court. The trial is a complete farce on the same lines as the witch trial from Monty Python’s Holy Grail.
Footnotes
Anyone who has taken a high school English class has had to read Shakespeare at one point or another. One defining characteristic of the plays is the carefully placed footnotes at the bottom of each page to help explain the awkward Shakespearean language and parts of mythology the reader might not understand. Moore, like any good absurdist does not leave these out.
It can be hard to fill every page with a memorable joke or entertaining situation, and to counter this problem Moore has created his own footnotes for the reader. They are not always side splittingly funny, but he often uses them to talk at the audience instead of through Pocket. It can feel a bit like being yelled at by a comedian.
One thing to note is that Moore never makes fun of Shakespeare or the original King Lear. He did not create a parody. He created a masterpiece of comedy. It takes a true comedy master to take a subject like the lost years of Jesus and turn it into a funny version of a very serious topic in Lamb. Shakespeare was a much easier target and it shows. Fool is a can’t miss novel for anyone searching for a good hardy laugh. Just don’t read it in public. People tend to stare when you laugh loudly next to them.
For constant updates on new books Christopher Moore maintains a very funny blog filled with personal stories, pictures, and teaser chapters to new books. Certainly worth a visit.
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