Customer Reviews

Fortune's Fool

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A sweet, enjoyable love story.

Parental notes: Conrad and Christa sleep together (at least in the literal sense. If they "sleep together" in the figurative sense, it is not explicitly mentioned.) He sees her naked.

Like everything about the middle ages, this is a religious book. Unlike most people of the middle ages, Conrad thinks about and makes his own decisions about religion. Though not religious, myself, I liked what the book said.

The book reinforces the stereotype that nearly all medieval rulers were sadistic pigs. Actually, most jesters were probably treated very kindly by their masters, indeed like members of the family. I recommend "Fools and Jesters at the English Court" by Southworth for a historically accurate picture.

The book also paints the standard image of clergy as being rather more interested in wine, women, song, and rich food than salvation. Other than that, most of the religious characters are portrayed positively

The book implies that all entertainers were denied the rites of the Church. I'm not sure that this was always true, although often it probably was.

As an orphaned teenage jester in the court of a medieval German lord, Conrad doesn't enjoy the best treatment.

He entertains Lord Otto with acrobatics learned from his jester father, now dead, and he makes friends with others at the castle, but he sleeps in a stable and has few human comforts. When he receives a particularly painful beating for speaking out against Lord Otto's unjust taxing of the peasants under his control, he resolves to leave in search of his freedom, or at least for a lord who will not be as cruel.

He intends to leave alone, but his love, Christa, one of Lord Otto's servants, refuses to let him leave without her, and they travel the German countryside, Christa disguised as a boy. Along their journey they meet with hardships in the form of terrible weather, more cruel lords, and restrictive laws, but they also meet up with engaging characters. My personal favorite is a young boy, Second-Chance Max, whom Conrad and Christa save from death and who then travels with them, learning the ways of a jester.

It's a pleasure to watch the growth of Conrad from a boy jester who's still unsure of his place in the world to a young man capable of leading a company of friends in the jester's art.

This book paints a historically accurate picture of late 1300s Germany, and the author's enthusiasm for historical detail never gets in the way of the reader's understanding. If anything, it enhances the experience of the story. From the food Conrad eats to the people he meets to the places he sees, every detail helps to set the scene. It is a world in which his characterization seems natural and believable. The author includes a note upon the history of the time and a list of the sources she used for her research, so more ambitious or interested readers have an outlet for discovering more about the world of Conrad and Christa.

Reviewed by: Candace Cunard