Written by Christopher Moore
“This is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as nontraditional grammar, split infinitives, and the odd wank. If that’s the sort of thing you think you might enjoy, then you have happened upon the perfect story!”
I didn’t think it was possible to top Christopher Moore’s previous magnum opus, Lamb…though he all-but-equals that achievement with Fool.
Fool is the story of Pocket, King Lear’s favourite jester…the King Lear of Shakespeare’s ouvre. It’s told in the same style as Lamb: take a quasi-historical setting, give it a contemporary twist, and play with it until you achieve the same end as the original story you are manipulating.
The first difference here is that the eponymous Fool is fictional, as is the setting…but thanks to having enough real medieval history on hand (and some poetic license on the part of the author) we are treated to another masterly mish-mash of something familiar…which turns out to be anything BUT familiar.
A second difference is the tone, as Moore comes 180 degress about from his approach to the story of Biff & the Messiah. Lamb was about innocents making their way though a dark and brutal world that needed a dose of sweet, bumbling, child-like goodness. Fool is about characters that KNOW they are all complete and total bastards, living and dying in a disgusting, unrepentent, cess pool of a civlization. However, the main character is slowly realizing that he may actually be better than his surroundings. It’s dirtier, rougher, more debauched, more profane, and more in-your-face than Lamb (possibly even more hilarious)…but it does its job with the same powerful & hilarious purpose…and makes for the most compelling, un-put-down-able book I’ve read since…
…well…since Lamb!
King Lear is an ingenious bit of Shakespeare. Christopher Moore is an ingenious author. Combining these talents makes Fool an ingenious book…though you’ll feel like soaping out your mouth after reading through all the epic (and I do mean epic) swearing. ;-)
