Thank god for Christopher Moore. Dollar for recession dollar, a
Moore book is guaranteed to garner more good times and laughs than a
night spent at your local bar, or watching a sub-par comedy at your
neighborhood cinema. His newest, Fool, is no exception. But be
warned: Portion out your reading, and make it last like a
Depression-era casserole, ’cause while he may be prolific, you’re not
getting a new entrée from Moore until 2010.
Fool is a hysterical mash-up of Shakespeare’s tragedies, in
particular the balls-out madness of King Lear. Moore’s novel is
narrated by Pocket, a right witty and randy jester who first watches
and then orchestrates the chaos that ensues when his king, Lear,
decides to relinquish his throne to his three daughters based on the
fervor of their proclamations of love and fidelity. Lear’s two oldest
daughters, Goneril and Regan, brown-nose their way into splitting the
kingdom, while sweet, naïve Cordelia keeps it real and thus earns
the scorn of her father. Cue the murder plots, power plays, and
outlandish scheming. Oh, and it gets nice and ribald, too.
Pocket is more familiar with juggling and tumbling than poisoning
his enemies, and when he becomes deeply embroiled in the political
chess game, his good humor starts to flag. “Do you know that there’s no
fool piece on the chessboard?” he asks his friend, who answers,
“Methinks the fool is the player, the mind above the moves.” Beneath
Pocket’s ridiculous appearance, something great lurks, much like
Moore’s pithy, anachronistic novel. Fool is like reading an
Elizabethan comedy penned by Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams, with some
comedic help from Terry Prachett when it comes to the masturbation
bits.
With the benefit of Pocket’s wit and absurdist irreverence, the
tragic King Lear becomes a riotous out-and-out comedy, avoiding
the tired pitfalls that plague a lot of the Bard’s reimaginings. The
foreword warning rings absolutely true: “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 non-traditional grammar, split infinitives, and the odd wank.” The
comic relief of the fool is just as appealing to us in these broke-ass
times as it probably was to the peasant groundlings at the Globe.