Shakespeare’s works are obviously timeless and magical…but according to Christopher Moore’s book , Fool, they’re completely and wretchedly romanticized!
Take King Lear for example.
I’ll leave it to you to refresh your memory of the plot of King Lear, a dark story of betrayals, murder plots, unruly children…”and ghosts. There’s always a bloody ghost!” Now imagine that the one who really survives and gets the girl isn’t who you’d expect…
When you read Moore’s take on things, from the perspective of the king’s jester, the world seems just a tad…different. Raunchy is a word that keeps coming to mind. Though the verbage is definitely 13th century, for some reason it doesn’t seem to be arranged as… artistically??…as the famous play we read in school. In fact, I’m sure uttering more than three sentences of this book out loud would get you expelled.
All that to say, the premise of the story is actually quite smart! To take a famous work like King Lear and completely rearrange the viewpoint to such a lesser character…well, of course its raunchy, racy, sexy, rude, crude, and dirty (are you catching my drift here?) Life for the court fool was far from romantic! And for poor “Pocket”, the jester of such a King as Lear, there were matters of life and death at stake.
I am serious when I say that this book isn’t for the lighthearted or easily offended! (This isn’t even close to Monty Python!) In all honesty, I only finished it because I couldn’t imagine how it all played out…and while the author’s idea was witty and well-done – he isn’t one I’ll be looking to read more of. I'm sure Mr. Moore could care less...most of the people that have reviewed this book say that it and the others Moore wrote are amazing, brilliant, and ridiculously funny if you check here.
Despite the fact that I’m apparently more of a “Pollyanna” than I thought so far it’s been really interesting to see what others are reading! J
Onward and Forward to Book #13
Take King Lear for example.
I’ll leave it to you to refresh your memory of the plot of King Lear, a dark story of betrayals, murder plots, unruly children…”and ghosts. There’s always a bloody ghost!” Now imagine that the one who really survives and gets the girl isn’t who you’d expect…
When you read Moore’s take on things, from the perspective of the king’s jester, the world seems just a tad…different. Raunchy is a word that keeps coming to mind. Though the verbage is definitely 13th century, for some reason it doesn’t seem to be arranged as… artistically??…as the famous play we read in school. In fact, I’m sure uttering more than three sentences of this book out loud would get you expelled.
All that to say, the premise of the story is actually quite smart! To take a famous work like King Lear and completely rearrange the viewpoint to such a lesser character…well, of course its raunchy, racy, sexy, rude, crude, and dirty (are you catching my drift here?) Life for the court fool was far from romantic! And for poor “Pocket”, the jester of such a King as Lear, there were matters of life and death at stake.
I am serious when I say that this book isn’t for the lighthearted or easily offended! (This isn’t even close to Monty Python!) In all honesty, I only finished it because I couldn’t imagine how it all played out…and while the author’s idea was witty and well-done – he isn’t one I’ll be looking to read more of. I'm sure Mr. Moore could care less...most of the people that have reviewed this book say that it and the others Moore wrote are amazing, brilliant, and ridiculously funny if you check here.
Despite the fact that I’m apparently more of a “Pollyanna” than I thought so far it’s been really interesting to see what others are reading! J
Onward and Forward to Book #13
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